Learning Life Over
by Meander Later
Summary: Harry was a workaholic Auror, and happy that way. He did not ask Malfoy to kidnap him and teach him the finer points of pleasure. HPDM slash, HBP spoilers. COMPLETE
1. No Holiday In Sight

Disclaimer: The characters and settings portrayed herein belong to J. K. Rowling and her associates. I don't own them, and I am not profiting from this story.

_Title: Learning Life Over_

Pairing: HP/DM

Summary: Harry was a workaholic Auror, and happy that way. He did not ask Malfoy to kidnap him and teach him the finer points of pleasure.

Warnings: **SPOILERS for HBP**, sexual content, adult language, minor violence. Also, a lot of this is unabashed hurt/comfort, so you will probably want to go elsewhere if you don't like reading that.

_Chapter 1—No Holiday In Sight_

"Have a good night, Potter."

Harry grunted a goodbye to Wormwood as the other Auror, his new temporary partner, left. He could practically feel the shaking head, though he didn't look up to see it. Wormwood had only worked with Harry for three weeks. He wasn't used to Harry's dedication yet, something he would have heard stories of but never seen.

Harry shrugged as he finished the report on the questioning of Robert Dashwood, a former Death Eater who had never advanced very far in the ranks when Voldemort was actually alive, but had gone on to bigger—and worse—crimes once his master was dead. It wasn't his fault, was it, that he had more time to devote to chasing and capturing Dark wizards? Other Aurors had what they called lives. So did Harry, although the others insisted he didn't. His life was his work.

It might have been different, once, but things hadn't worked out that way. Harry simply didn't have anyone left. The anniversary of the Weasley Massacre that had destroyed the Burrow and everyone whom he loved was the only day he left work so much as an hour early, and that was mostly because he wasn't fit company for anyone. He spent the extra hour walking back to his flat and staring at everything red he could find. It reminded him of Weasley hair, and Ginny, and Ron, and, by this point, even of the non-Weasleys who had died in the Massacre—Hermione, Remus, Fleur. It was the only connection he allowed himself.

He'd gone on from it. He'd gathered up all the hatred and the rage from that one terrible night, and thrown himself into the quest for the Horcruxes. He'd found them and destroyed Voldemort inside a month. At the time, he hadn't believed that he'd have anything left to live for.

But he had discovered a grim satisfaction when it was done. Not the killing—Harry still didn't like that—but in knowing that Voldemort was dead and couldn't hurt anyone else. He wanted more of that, the knowledge that he was bringing cases to a close and that the former Death Eaters, or people who had dared to cross the line to rape and murder and use of Dark Arts for other reasons, were no longer free to harm the innocent. So he'd become an Auror.

The years since then were a quiet twilight, lit now and then with bright flares when he finished a particularly difficult case, or was able to tell a victim or a victim's family that they didn't have to worry any longer. His life was a flood of statistics, names, personality traits, ambush locations, learned when need be and then forgotten as new ones came along to replace them. He actually liked it best when the captures were routine and his enemies didn't have a chance to struggle. Intense emotion wasn't something he appreciated that much.

They did keep assigning him new partners, but that was because most Aurors who wanted to work with Harry did it out of hero-worship. When they found themselves greeted with calm indifference and no friendship no matter how long they persisted, they eventually gave up. The Ministry really didn't mind. Harry had no ambition outside of chasing Dark wizards, and giving him new partners regularly was a small price to pay compared to what the Hero of the Wizarding World could have demanded from them.

Harry knew that. He didn't care. Why should he? It wasn't something to be outraged about, and he certainly had no one to be outraged on his behalf.

He continued working until the clock built into his desk chimed softly, signaling that it was eleven-o'clock. Harry rose to his feet with a faint smile. The clock was a gift from another of his departed partners, Felix Jones, when he found Harry asleep at his desk for the fourth night in a row. This at least insured that Harry went to his flat and got a certain amount of sleep in his own bed. Harry appreciated it. If he didn't sleep, then he wouldn't be at his best when the moment came to make the capture.

He made his way silently out of the just-as-silent building, nodding familiarly to those few people who prowled the Ministry at this hour. Barrow, an Auror whose horribly twisted leg had kept him out of the field for over a year now, had corridor duty from ten until two, and he was waiting by the lifts when Harry arrived.

"Finished the Dashwood case, then?" he demanded.

Harry smiled. Since Barrow couldn't fight again, he seemed to be living vicariously through the cases Harry solved. Harry didn't mind. He would have done much the same thing if he'd suffered a curse the Healers couldn't find a cure for—that is, if he didn't kill himself first.

"Yes. We couldn't use Veritaserum legally, of course, since he refused it, but he finally slipped up and mentioned a detail about the Bressbaums' window that no one could have known who wasn't there." Harry felt another flash of that firework satisfaction as he thought of it. He had been the one to trap Dashwood in the interrogation and finally make him break and confess his crime.

Barrow actually rubbed his hands together, blue eyes bright with glee. "And it was the famous Harry Potter dead-face that did it, wasn't it?"

"Maybe." Harry suspected that his countless calm repetitions of the same questions—never losing his temper, never varying his expression—had probably helped to crack Dashwood's stubborn protestations of innocence, but he had never given as much credit to that as other people seemed to. They attributed any criminal's confession to it, even when Harry's partner had done most of the work.

"Sleep well, Potter," said Barrow, with a sharp nod. "The sleep of the just." He stepped out of the way as the lift doors opened.

Harry murmured his thanks and rode the lift down. His mind whirled with names and facts concerning the upcoming Moly case. Aholibah Moly had served six months in Azkaban for participation in a Death Eater raid and been released, but now she was the main suspect for a use of illegal pain curses that had left the poor woman involved nearly as mad as the Longbottoms. Harry didn't yet know enough about the case to say whether he thought Moly guilty or not. But he and Wormwood would track her down tomorrow and see what she had to tell them.

He reached the Atrium and walked through it, sparing a few glances for the fountain in the center. He could remember the battle that Dumbledore and Voldemort had waged in front of it, if he wanted to. He didn't want to, really. It was years ago, and most of the participants in it were dead.

He rode the lift up to the deserted phone box in the equally deserted alley that concealed the entrance to the Ministry, hiding a yawn now and then. He'd make sure to eat when he returned to his flat, a sandwich or so, and then sleep the seven hours he always did before he could rise and return to work. Harry supposed he would need to slow down eventually—seven hours of sleep a night might be enough for a man of twenty-eight, but he would grow older—but that hadn't happened yet.

He felt a long moment of quiet contentment as he stepped out of the phone box and stared up at the stars. Maybe this wasn't what he'd envisioned doing or being years ago, but he liked his life. Helping people suited him.

Just as he drew his wand and prepared to Apparate, he heard footsteps behind him. Harry turned calmly. He was sure he was more magically powerful than whoever it was, and besides, most Death Eaters wouldn't just stroll up to an Auror.

"_Lumos_," he did say, when the figure drew near and Harry realized he didn't recognize the posture or the gait. He raised an eyebrow when the light caught on the gleam of blond hair. But, well, why not? Draco Malfoy was as likely to be waiting outside the Ministry as doing anything else, these days. He'd received a full pardon from the Wizengamot after the War, since he'd been coerced into letting Death Eaters into Hogwarts and had spent every moment after that night on the Tower lying low, committing no crime.

Harry hadn't kept up with news of him. What did grudges matter any more? And Malfoy's crimes had been petty compared to so many of those he dealt with daily.

"What can I do for you, Malfoy?" he asked, when he realized Malfoy had stopped walking, and the intent stare said that he'd come to talk to Harry and no one else.

"Potter," Malfoy breathed. "Just the man I wanted to see."

Harry felt a stirring of interest. There were usually only two reasons that people sought him out now, and he doubted Malfoy was one of the few still deluded enough to think he was something special and want a signature or photograph. "Do you have information about a case for me?"

For a moment, rage passed across Malfoy's face. Harry was a bit startled, given his calmness until this point, but sometimes victims were frozen and numb until the first mention of what had happened to them. He prepared himself to listen and make the proper sympathetic noises.

But then the rage vanished, and Malfoy murmured, "Hardly. I've come to give you your life back, Potter."

Harry's puzzlement increased. "Is this a prank?" he asked, honestly bewildered as to why Malfoy would want to play one on him. "Because you should know that I probably won't react the way you want me to—"

Malfoy abruptly lunged forward. Harry tried to get his wand in the way on instinct; he still didn't really think Malfoy had come to hurt him. But he'd let it lower when he recognized the other wizard, and he couldn't get it up in time before Malfoy's spell struck him.

"_Stupefy._"

Harry's eyes crossed, and he felt his body go limp, his grip on his wand relaxing. His mind raced, though, as he tried to figure who had put Malfoy up to this, and what they could possibly have to gain.

Revenge from an enemy? It could be, but Harry mostly didn't leave his enemies free. Or perhaps Malfoy had a tie to one of the cases Harry was currently investigating, and didn't want him to find out something crucial, although why he would be hanging around the Ministry of all places—

Malfoy caught him before he could hit the ground, and fumbled in his pocket for a moment. Then Harry felt the familiar tug of a Portkey.

His main emotion as they both vanished was annoyance. If Malfoy insisted on abducting him, Harry would definitely not make it to work on time tomorrow.


	2. The Bower

Thank you for the reviews! I can promise to update this story fairly quickly, as I already have a lot written, and the chapters just need some editing.

_Chapter 2—The Bower_

Harry opened his eyes slowly. It wasn't the sounds that confused him, or even the bed beneath him, so soft that it was like lying on a cloud, as much as the smells.

He glanced around, and found himself enclosed in walls of breathing green. Trees with delicately arched trunks swayed long, slender leaves back and forth, opening and closing like lungs. The green tapered off into yellow near the leaf-tips. Here and there, the startling orange or white note of a flower announced itself among the branches. Harry had never seen blossoms so big. The closest, which was dispensing a large portion of the fragrance into his nostrils, was at least as wide as both his outstretched arms.

He stared up, and above him was sky. Bright wings cut the air as three or four birds soared over the clearing. They swirled casually around each other, then broke apart with shrill cries and dived into the trees. A moment later, low, muted songs broke forth.

Harry snapped himself out of his daze and carefully examined his surroundings, chiding himself for taking so long to notice what was nearest. He did indeed lie on a bed, so mounded with pillows and blankets that he curled his lip a bit in disgust. Who _needed_ that many? The bed itself sat on grass so finely cut that Harry could make out tiny purple and blue flowers in it. All in all, it was a strange place Malfoy had chosen to abduct him to.

But Malfoy wasn't here at the moment, and no chains bound Harry to the bed. He started to sit up.

Almost at once, he found that while he could move in any direction, an invisible barrier kept him from leaving the bed. In fact, he couldn't lift his arms and legs much higher than about a foot from the blankets. It was the _oddest_ thing. Harry had never seen a binding spell like it. His limbs would rise that distance and then fall limply back. He wished he knew the spell for use on some of the Death Eaters who'd mastered the trick of breaking Body-Binds.

More to the point, though, he wished he knew the spell so he would know the countercharm. Then he could escape and go back to work. From the angle of the light, it was at least ten-o'clock in the morning by now. God knew what Wormwood was doing on the Moly case without him.

"Good morning."

Harry jerked his head up and narrowed his eyes, then chided himself for being startled. Malfoy had emerged from a gap in the trees that hadn't looked like a gap, ducking between two interwoven trunks. He carried a jade-colored tray in his hands. On the tray sat—something. At some point, it might have been an ordinary stack of pancakes. Then it had received so much syrup, butter, strawberries, and whipped cream that it looked like a sad parody of healthy food.

Malfoy took his wand out and conjured a small table, setting the tray down on it. Then he stood regarding Harry expectantly.

Harry let his breath out slowly. He'd been in hostage situations before. He still couldn't figure out what Malfoy wanted from him, but he knew how important it was to remain calm and refuse to let the enemy control the situation. _Humor the bastard._

That would have been easier if he hadn't been so sure that Wormwood would make a disaster of the Moly case. It needed patience, and Wormwood's overriding fault was a restlessness that pushed him to ask questions long before he should, and as a consequence make mistakes.

"Good morning, Malfoy," Harry said, keeping his voice even. "I think there was some mistake last night. If you'd mind letting me go?"

Malfoy folded his arms. "Why?"

_Play along, play along. _Harry had encountered Dark wizards who were incapable of accepting simple logic like this, so twisted were their minds. "I need to get to work," he said. He lifted his arms to meet the limits of the spell. At once they relaxed and dropped back into his lap. "And the spell, which I'm sure you set for my safety, won't let me leave the bed."

Malfoy acquired a funny little smirk. He conjured a chair next to the table and reclined in it. Harry barely kept from snorting. Of course the chair was made of dark wood and slanted at such an angle that it would mean maximum comfort for the person lying in it. Trust Malfoy to keep up standards even when he'd gone mad.

"There's no mistake, Harry." Harry frowned at the use of his first name. It was never a good sign when someone who took hostages did that. "I simply got tired of watching you waste what you are. I decided to take you and show you that you could, in fact, have a life. I'm going to teach you how to relax, how to have fun, how to feel good again—all those things you've forgotten." Abruptly, he leaned forward, and his voice dropped. "I'm going to make you feel _so_ good, Harry."

Harry just stared at him. If not for the training that told him to guard his tongue and keep humoring Malfoy's delusions until he could find a way to escape, he would have spoken the truth.

This was insane.

Harry was forced to consider the possibility that Malfoy had taken him for personal reasons, and not because he was a Death Eater. Some bizarre revenge for their Hogwarts rivalry? A prank that he intended to play until he got bored? All the possibilities Harry could come up with didn't make much more sense than what Malfoy had said.

Perhaps seeing this, the bastard smiled some more. Harry studied his face, and found little of the student he'd known there. Oh, Malfoy still looked much the same, but his features had softened and been transformed. He wore his hair shoulder-length, and moved with a lazy confidence that certainly didn't belong to the panicked boy Harry had known their sixth year at Hogwarts. And he looked as though he hadn't known a day's hardship since the Wizengamot pardoned him.

All of those could be important clues to getting free. Harry had once escaped a Dark witch because he noticed that she tended to get flustered when he smiled at her. He'd done enough of that, and finally she'd neglected to lock his manacles properly. He could escape Malfoy the same way.

It would help if he understood him better, of course.

As if he agreed, Malfoy started talking again. "You realize that you haven't lived at all since the Dark Lord killed your friends, Harry? You're sleepwalking through your life. I've watched you for two years. All you do is work, and eat and sleep just enough to keep yourself healthy so that you can work some more." His face had darkened now, and Harry saw a trace of that same rage with which Malfoy had confronted him in the alley. What it made him think was that his captor was dangerously unstable. _Wonderful. _"It's ridiculous. I won't have it, not when I know how beautiful you are, what you could be like if you were wanted and tended and taken proper care of." He arched an eyebrow. "And I want you."

Harry bit his lip to keep in a desperate laugh. _God_, this was mad. Malfoy was talking about making him into a dog or a cat, it seemed like. Were a collar and a food bowl his next gifts?

On the other hand, the part about him watching Harry for two years made him sound like a stalker, and Harry knew how to deal with those. He'd protected Seekers, Ministry officials, singers, and others who had become the target of a crazed obsession.

What he couldn't figure out was why Malfoy had chosen _him_ as the target. They hadn't even seen each other in eleven years, and Harry's profile had dipped low enough that Malfoy shouldn't have latched on to him as others typically latched on to a celebrity. If Harry's life really bored Malfoy as much as he said it did, how had he drummed up the interest to watch Harry for so long?

"You really don't get it, do you?"

Malfoy's voice was soft. Harry looked up, and was startled to see him leaning even closer, almost to the limit of whatever spell he'd put on the bed, probably. His face had softened, too, and he studied Harry intently. Harry hoped he was about to offer a real answer.

"You aren't going back to work for a time, Harry," Malfoy said. "Maybe not ever. It depends on how well you respond to what I teach you. For right now, you have absolutely nothing to worry about. No cases, no curses, no crazed enemies. There's just you, and me, and what I'm going to show you of pleasure."

Harry tensed. He couldn't _imagine_ not working. He had to know he was doing something, helping other people _somehow_, with his life. How could Malfoy expect him to spend hour after empty hour in this—wherever it was?

"Where are we?" he asked. The information might help, and Malfoy looked in the mood to give it to him.

Malfoy smiled and nodded, as if he approved of Harry taking an interest in his surroundings. "The Manor's garden," he said. "Enchanted so that some plants that don't naturally grow in England flourish here, of course. You spent the night on a proper bed, for once." He gestured to the tray. "And I've brought you a proper breakfast, sweet and rich. Eat up, Harry."

"I don't think so, thanks," said Harry. He was hungry—he'd put off eating yesterday to get the Dashwood case finished, and had planned on a late dinner when he got to his flat—but Malfoy had probably drugged the food.

"You _need_ this," Malfoy said, with the same weird intensity. "You need this so badly you don't even know you need it."

Harry snorted, and decided to dare a little sarcasm. At least it might shift the balance of power between them. "I don't think I need a breakfast so full of sweets and so short on actual food."

"For now, you do," Malfoy said. "I've watched you eat, too, you know. Corned beef sandwiches? Day in and day out? A piece of cheese and a glass of water when you think it's a special occasion? _Really_, Harry. Your taste buds must have shriveled. I'm eager to do things that will make you cry out in pleasure—" Harry shifted uncomfortably at the look Malfoy gave him then, one that raked his body head to toe and gleamed like metal—"but moans are acceptable, too. Such as the kind of moans that you'll make when you taste this."

Reluctantly, Harry accepted that the situation was real, and Malfoy really did want him for some sexual purpose. He had to set sanity aside. The important thing was not that he wasn't beautiful; it was that Malfoy _believed_ he was beautiful, and would act accordingly. And he really wanted Harry to eat sweet foods and—succumb to some sexual fetish he had, apparently.

Resisting him might make him angry. Certainly the rage that had shone in his eyes indicated that. And Harry had no idea what the anger might make him capable of. Stalking someone for two years wasn't a good sign, though.

Harry decided it wasn't worth fighting over something as simple as this. He'd do much better pretending to go along with Malfoy and escaping once Malfoy let his guard down and learned to trust him. Veritaserum in the food or Malfoy turning out to have a fetish for whips would make that more difficult, of course, but Harry hoped he could escape before it got to that point.

"All right," he said. "If that's all you'll give me to eat."

"For right now," said Malfoy, waving his wand and floating the tray off the table. Harry watched intently for the moment when Malfoy would have to take the spell barrier down, but to his puzzlement, the food passed straight over the edge of the bed without a pause and settled into his lap. The spell must be on him, then, Harry thought, and not the bed. "Fresh fruit and wine later, of course. And I'm going to have quite a time teaching you about proper cheese, and food you've never heard of, let alone tasted."

Harry surveyed the tray. Beside the enormous stack of pancakes was a glass of milk so frothy it looked like foam, a knife, and a fork. He picked up the knife and cut a cautious chunk from the pancakes. Then, more than aware of Malfoy's eyes watching his every move, he stabbed the piece with the fork and put it in his mouth. He didn't taste any of the common drugs that he'd been told to watch for in Auror training.

Of course, it was a little difficult to taste anything but the intense sweetness spreading through his mouth, making him feel as though he'd been punched in the tongue. Harry choked a bit, and felt his stomach rumble harder. He couldn't deny it was the best thing he'd eaten in years, and his cramped appetite, which he usually ignored, was awakening with a vengeance.

"Good, Harry," Malfoy said softly. Harry blinked at him, and surprised a smile on his face. "This is the simplest lesson that you'll learn, but one of the most important. Tastes good, doesn't it?"

The smugness behind the smile dissipated Harry's euphoria, making him wonder if the meal was drugged after all. He forced himself to put the fork down. "I still don't see why you care so much about this," he said.

"Oh, you will," said Malfoy, standing. "But the short answer is that I want you. Quite a bit, more than I've wanted anyone in a long time. And the people I want should be taken care of, especially if they can't take care of themselves." He flicked his fingers in a way that dismissed the whole last decade of Harry's life. "I want you to enjoy yourself."

Harry sighed. "Why?" he whispered. He'd play along in a moment, but if there was any possibility of a straight answer, he wanted one.

Malfoy tilted his head. "If you could see yourself the way I see you, Harry, you wouldn't ask that question. I'll send a house-elf to fetch the tray when you're done." And he turned and walked calmly back through the gap in the trees.

Harry stared after him, then sighed and returned to eating. That hadn't been as productive as he hoped. He had no idea how to escape yet, and no idea how long Malfoy planned to keep him.

And while he was here, God knew what damage Wormwood was inflicting with Aholibah Moly. And if Malfoy held him longer, a week even—

Harry felt his stomach curdle abruptly. It could be months, couldn't it? Malfoy wouldn't have been so stupid as to simply kidnap Harry and make him vanish. He would have covered his tracks. And if he'd chosen the right story, then no one might look for him. It wasn't as though he had anyone close.

And how many victims would suffer because of Harry not being there to handle cases?

His mouth curled, Harry took a firm bite of the pancakes. He _had_ to escape. There were no two ways about that.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

From behind the trees, under the cover of a Disillusionment Charm, Draco watched Harry eat. There weren't as many moans as he'd hoped for, especially once Harry obviously came to some conclusion that dismayed him, but now and then his eyes fluttered shut, and he spent longer on the pancakes than Draco had ever seen him spend on a sandwich, savoring them despite himself.

_That will change, _Draco thought, eyes narrowed. _Everything will._

He supposed he sounded mad to Harry, and maybe even to someone else. He didn't care. He hadn't cared since he saw a photograph in the _Daily Prophet_ two years ago, of Harry capturing Bellatrix Lestrange.

The picture had been taken just at the moment of capture, as Harry spoke the spell that Stunned Draco's aunt and dropped her where she stood, and the change in Harry's face was breathtaking. One moment he'd been utterly calm and closed-down, the way he looked when he made some of the speeches they'd required of him on the first few anniversaries of the Dark Lord's defeat; the next moment, his face had _blazed_, life shining through his green eyes like unclouded sunlight.

The first man was someone Draco couldn't imagine feeling anything but contempt for. The second made him _want_ in a way he hadn't ever felt.

He had investigated Harry before he'd approached him, of course. Malfoys were _not_ rejected. He intended to understand Harry and what he liked, what he disliked, what he looked for in a partner—everything about him that would insure Draco succeeded in snaring him.

What he'd found shocked, horrified, and then enraged him by turns. Harry _wasn't_ the man Draco had seen in the photograph, except in the moments when he captured a criminal. He'd forsaken life and plunged into work. He never dated. He had no friends worthy of the name, only people whom he talked to about cases. He had no pleasures in life that didn't relate to his hunting—and even that, Draco had come to see, was more a grim duty to others than something Harry did because he loved it. He was a zombie, a sleepwalker, an indifferent gray mass of a person, a true public servant. He was wasting all the beauty that Draco saw in him because he didn't care.

Two years had been enough to convince Draco that the pattern wouldn't change without outside help, and, not coincidentally, to inflame his lust so much he would _have_ to kidnap Harry. He knew what he wanted. It became clearer every day. This wasn't a passing fancy, it was an obsession, and Draco was salivating at the chance to teach Harry how to live life again. It didn't matter if other people understood. In fact, Draco was pleased they didn't; it meant less competition for Harry. His mother might stare at him sorrowfully, Severus might sneer, and his Slytherin friends might give him looks of blank incomprehension. That didn't matter, either. Lucius was the only one who might have successfully opposed Draco's desires, and Lucius had died five years ago in Azkaban. There was nothing standing in his way.

It didn't really matter if Harry wouldn't ever have taken Draco as his lover. Draco intended to take Harry as his.

He watched patiently as the mild sleeping potion, one of his own inventions, in the pancakes took effect, and Harry relaxed involuntarily against the pillows. A Malfoy house-elf appeared with a pop and removed the tray.

Draco turned and strode towards the Manor.

Now, the second phase could begin.


	3. Harry Tries to Bribe A House Elf

_Chapter 3—Harry Tries to Bribe a House-Elf_

Draco focused on the potion in front of him. It was a deep blue-purple color, with first one shade and then the other dominating as the liquid swirled in the cauldron. It sat on top of a scrying mirror, which was barely big enough to reflect the metallic sides of the cauldron back. Draco lowered the final ingredient into the potion, a strand of Harry's hair that he'd collected last night while Harry lay unconscious on the bed.

The potion burbled once, and then glowed a calm indigo, with no more of the swirling. Draco smirked and bent to breathe on the scrying mirror, which began to shimmer.

This potion was linked to the sleeping potion he'd given Harry. At least, it was linked once Harry had ingested that sleeping potion and Draco had added the strand of his hair. Draco could move the cauldron in a moment, so that he could see the mirror more fully.

That would allow him a glimpse into Harry's dreams, and a way to influence them.

_And then, the fun begins._

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Harry looked around. He knew he must be dreaming, because the landscape around him was soft and confused in a way it only ever was in his dreams. He appeared to be sitting in the middle of an enormous blue-purple cloud, or perhaps a flower, as it bent a little like that around him.

And someone was touching him, fingers sliding over his forehead, down his cheeks, gently cupping his jaw.

That was what made him think it might not be a dream. He'd never felt anything so _real_ when he dreamed. Usually, he dreamed of cases, and sometimes of Hogwarts, but they faded into tattered images that were gone come morning. This certainly wasn't something he'd experienced in the past, and therefore it had no place in his head. In fact, Harry couldn't remember the last time someone had touched him, except a suspect who tried to run and whom he had to tackle and bear to the ground.

He shifted, shrugging, trying to get rid of the hands. They didn't pay attention to him. They'd reached his shoulders and begun a rough motion that Harry supposed most people would call a massage. _He _called it annoying.

Harry glanced down, and realized with a start which brought heat to his skin that he was naked. And, from the position of the hands, the other person was sitting behind him, and could therefore see _everything._

He tried to cover himself up. One of the hands moved, catching both his wrists in a firm grip and lifting them out of the way. The other crept down his chest, bringing a warm arm with it, and a finger flicked delicately at his left nipple.

Harry's face might as well have been on fire by now. He tried to stand, and it didn't work. The hand on his chest pinched his nipple, making Harry cry out in startlement, and tweaking nerves he hadn't known he had.

A chuckle sounded in his ear. His reaction apparently pleased the person touching him. To Harry's further confusion, the chuckle was definitely male. Not that he had time for dating, or for frivolous dreams, either, but if someone had asked him, Harry would have said he was straight.

His nipple got pinched again, and then the hand holding his wrists let them go so it could do the same to the right one. Harry arched his back despite himself. Sharp pinpricks of sensation fled through his torso and into his lower body, as if he'd been sitting on one of his legs for a long time and was now trying to stand.

And then the fingers shifted further down his chest, skimming up and down the delicate skin on his ribs. Harry knew he was flushing even more deeply. He wouldn't call himself ticklish, but, well, he was _sensitive_ there, thanks.

And he feared where the hands might get to if he let them keep going.

Again, he made an attempt to get away. But the blue-purple blanket beneath him bobbed and shifted, and made him stumble to his hands and knees. The person behind him followed, and then fingertips were fluttering along his spine, touching his shoulder blades, his lower back, a spot just above his arse that Harry didn't even know he had but which made him jump as if stung. His tormentor laughed outright this time, and directed more attention to that spot, pressing and pinching the skin, making Harry utter a low confused noise. He didn't know what was happening to him, but he was sure it would end up pulling emotions to the surface that he'd deliberately discarded a long time ago.

What he feared would happen happened, and one of those clever hands cupped his groin, rubbing so softly that Harry shivered, before dipping back towards his balls. He twisted, feeling as if the pleasure the touch awoke were _hurting_ him, hooking into him and dragging him towards an arousal he wasn't ready to feel.

"Don't worry," the torturer whispered, directly into his ear this time, awakening unwilling memories of how sensitive they used to be when he still dated Ginny. "We won't be having sex until you're ready. But I did want to show you how good I could make you feel."

"We won't be having sex _ever_," Harry snarled, and lunged away a second time.

This time, the pursuer let him, and Harry's eyes snapped open as the dream dissolved. The first thing he noticed was the much later angle of the light, which meant he'd been in bed all day, doing _nothing_, which lashed him with guilt and frustration.

The second thing was his erection, digging insistently at the crotch of his trousers. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been this hard.

Harry closed his eyes, willing the anger back down. _It doesn't matter, _he told himself again and again. _You knew something like this was going to happen. It doesn't mean you want it; it's just a natural physiological reaction. You know that._

And he did. He wasn't really worried about the fact that he'd reacted. The dream had been magical, or perhaps the result of a potion in the food he ate. He was worried about the fact that he had to work hard to keep from touching himself, that the drag of his trousers over his erection felt so damn _good_.

He couldn't afford to lose control, or he wouldn't escape from Malfoy. And if he didn't escape, then he couldn't continue to work. He'd already spent one day lying around uselessly in bed. What else would happen if he started flailing around, obeying the first emotions that sprang up in him, like a child?

He _had_ to escape.

"Master Harry is coming with Trippy now."

Harry yelped, his eyes flying open, and he curled around to shield his arousal, before he realized he was trying to do that in front of a house-elf. He forced his body to relax, and studied the elf for a moment. She was a bit bigger than Dobby, and held a pile of folded cloth; Harry couldn't tell what it was meant to be. New blankets for the bed, maybe.

It occurred to him that he might try to convince her to let him go. Of course, most house-elves were loyal to their masters beyond any bribery or trickery, but Dobby hadn't been. Maybe his example had inspired the other Malfoy house-elves. Maybe Harry could lie convincingly enough to make her think that Malfoy had given different orders than he really had. He'd done it to humans, after all.

Best of all, as he sighed and applied himself to the task, he felt his erection slowly beginning to soften.

"I suppose that I'll have to disobey Malfoy's orders, then," he said mournfully.

Trippy's ears twitched above the pile of cloth, and then she peered around it at him. "Which orders?" she asked anxiously. "Master Malfoy was giving orders that Trippy did not hear of?"

Harry nodded. "He told me in my dreams just now," he said, making up the lie on the spot. _Ha. Take that, Malfoy_. "He said that I could go out beyond the Manor and Apparate home, as long as I promised to return in the morning. I don't sleep well except in my own bed, and he knows that. He was sorry for keeping me here last night." He paused. By now, Trippy's eyes gleamed like lanterns, and she seemed to have to work hard to keep from tapping her foot on the ground. "But if you've had different orders, then I'll just have to disobey—"

"Trippy doesn't wish to disobey Master Malfoy's orders, _ever_." The house-elf looked on the verge of bursting into tears. "Trippy is a good elf!"

Harry raised his eyebrows. "Really?" he asked, as if he doubted it.

"Yes! _Yes!_ Trippy is not like bad Dobby!"

"But, well, you are, if you try to prevent me from leaving now," Harry pointed out, while filing away the fact that appealing to Dobby's example probably wouldn't work. "In fact, I'm afraid I'd have to tell Malfoy that I told you about his orders and you _still_ disobeyed them. What would happen then?"

Trippy shivered, nearly sending the pile of cloth she held to the ground. "Bad things," she whispered.

"But they don't have to," Harry coaxed, anxious to keep her from getting so upset that she'd start hurting herself. Not only would that make him feel bad, but he'd rarely got any sense out of Dobby when he reached that state, and the same thing would probably happen with Trippy. "Not if you just lift the spell on me right now and let me leave the Manor. I promise I'll come back in the morning. And if I don't, then Malfoy would punish me, not you."

The house-elf sniffed and looked at him closely. "Master Harry promises?"

"He told me that."

Trippy nibbled the edge of one ear. Harry waited. The moment she lifted the spell that prevented him from leaving the bed, he intended to throw all his energy into wandless Apparition. He could accomplish it when he really had to, such as when he knew someone was trying to kill his partner. And this counted as an emergency. Once he reached the flat, he could establish such strong wards that Malfoy wouldn't be able to intrude, and then he could find out what he had to do to get his missing wand, his job, and his _life_ back.

"Trippy is sorry," the house-elf said suddenly. "But Master Malfoy says Master Harry is a bad boy, and will _lie_ to get out of trouble. If Trippy is wrong, Trippy will say sorry and punish self, but Trippy does not think she is wrong. Trippy thinks this is a lie. And Master Harry needs to come with Trippy." She waved a hand, and Harry abruptly found himself floated off the bed, helped along by house-elf magic.

"Trippy!" he protested, trying to struggle. His limbs hit nothing, of course. He was being levitated, not carried along in chains.

"Master Harry very sick," said the house-elf, who sounded much more cheerful now. "Master Harry needs to learn how to _relax."_ She turned and trotted off through the garden, while Harry bobbed along behind her like a helpless balloon.

For a moment, rage tried to overcome him. He was going to get out of this, somehow, and then he was going to _kill_ Malfoy.

Then he breathed hard, and subdued the emotions again. Maintaining a level head was still his best bet right now. So he couldn't trick Trippy. That didn't matter. He would find some other way out of this.

Trippy walked under the trees and through more beautiful green clearings that Harry wasn't really in the mood to appreciate, then past a flowerbed thick with roses, before halting. Harry peered over his own stomach to find out where they were.

A pool was set into the ground ahead of them. Harry could smell the water from here, sweet and warm, scented with what he supposed was a spell; surely not even Malfoy was enough of a ponce to float crushed rose petals on the surface or similar. White stones rimmed it, and Harry could see what looked like enough different kinds of soap and shampoo to serve an army.

"Master Harry must get into the pool and wash himself," Trippy announced. "Without clothes on."

"Oh, bloody _hell_, no," said Harry.

Trippy faced him, with a small frown. "Master Harry is being sick again?"

"Look," said Harry, trying to calm his breathing, "if he wants me clean, can't you just bring me to a shower or something? A shower's fine. I—"

"Master Harry is being sick again," Trippy decided, and snapped her fingers. In an instant, Harry's clothes were sliding off him and folding themselves by the side of the pool. Trippy set down the pile of cloth she was carrying, which Harry finally realized was a group of towels, so fluffy as to be decadent. And on top of them was a set of clothes that he was no doubt meant to wear.

"Master Harry get in water now!" Trippy squeaked, and her magic zoomed Harry over and deposited him gently into the pool. Harry struck out with his legs and gripped the stones on the side, trying to figure out how deep the water was.

Not deep, he found at once; he could touch the bottom with his toes. And there were several small sets of stones descending into the pool to form natural places to sit, or, Harry supposed, climb in and out. Of course, when he tried to do so, his arms fell limp again, just as they had on the bed, and he drifted back into the water.

"Trippy will come back for Master Harry when he has washed his hair and soothed the soreness and aches out of his muscles," the house-elf said. "And Master Harry is to wear the clothes left for him." Harry watched open-mouthed as she snatched up everything he'd worn when he arrived here, including his work robes, and carried them regally off.

"Those are my _clothes_," he spluttered.

"They are not being Master Harry's clothes any more!" Trippy called gaily over her shoulder. "They are being rags!"

Harry closed his eyes and tried to count to ten to slow the beat of his racing heart and the pace of his anger. That didn't work, so he counted to one hundred. That still didn't work.

_Who the fuck does Malfoy think he is, kidnapping me like this and subjecting me to—to bizarre dreams and sweet breakfasts and hot water?_

The worst of it was, it sounded ridiculous when Harry phrased it that way to himself. Other than the dreams and the spell that made it impossible for him to escape, what Malfoy had done sounded more like activities a Healer might order.

_I do not have a problem, _Harry thought, as he reached in resignation for one of the bottles on the side of the pool. _I will not succumb to Malfoy's madness, or his—his attempts to make me wank, or whatever he's doing. I will survive, and I will get out of here. I have people to help._ _I've already wasted one day in bed._

"Hello, Harry. Mind if I join you?"

Harry froze. It was Malfoy's voice, and it came from behind him, and at the moment, the only thought that would occur to him was not a cunning plan for escape, but _Oh, holy shit, I'm naked._


	4. The Pool

_Chapter 4—The Pool_

_Either way, _Draco thought, as he casually stripped off his clothes and watched Harry, who stood in the pool, resolutely facing away from him, _I win. If he stays like that, I get to see his arse. If he faces me, I get to see his cock._

He had an earlier wank after the dream to thank for the fact that he didn't sport an erection now. Given the ripple of muscles across Harry's back, however, and the curve of his arse, visible through the extremely clear water, that could quickly be remedied. He sat down on the nearest set of stone steps that led into the pool and watched Harry in interest, waiting for him to get bored of this game and turn around.

Luckily, Harry found his voice before Draco got tired of looking at his arse. "Yes, I mind, Malfoy," he said tightly, twisting his head to look over his shoulder. "I mind everything you've done to me since you abducted me, you bastard."

Draco caught his breath in delight. The spark of fury in Harry's eyes made them look very similar to the way they blazed when he caught a criminal. It was more of a reaction than he'd managed to stir from Harry since his capture. Privately, he celebrated. It had taken him less than a day to crack the façade, and given how stubborn Harry was, he'd thought it would take longer.

The sight made him start to harden again. Harry's eyes shifted unwillingly towards the twitch, and then he snapped around so that he was facing the opposite side of the pool once more. Draco hadn't thought his face could get any redder. Evidently, he was wrong.

"Now, Harry," said Draco. "I've given you bed rest, a good breakfast, a bath. Can you say I've done anything _that_ wrong?" He slipped from the steps into the water, and paused a moment to enjoy the soft, constant swirl of it against his skin. He'd had to hire a private expert to make the water move like this, and it had cost several hundred Galleons. It had been worth every one. "If you'd just relax and enjoy this, you might find you like it. Shocking, I know."

"There was also the dream," Harry said in a low voice.

Draco smiled and kicked off from the bottom, swimming towards Harry. Harry started as he floated up beside him and wrapped his arms around his torso. Draco stifled a moan. The expanse of warm, wet skin under his hands was wonderful. Knowing that he'd waited nearly two years to touch it only made it better.

He felt considerably less pleased when Harry elbowed him hard in the side, making him release his hold. Harry shrank backwards against the stones, his eyes narrow now, and still sparking. Draco winced and rubbed the forming bruise, then shook his head.

"The dream was of me doing nothing but touching you," he pointed out calmly. "I meant what I said, Harry. I wouldn't descend to rape." _Why should I? That's hardly a way to get a lover to stay with you, and I want him to stay with me. _"I want to know the pleasure of fucking you, and I expect to have it before too much longer, but it won't be against your will."

"You have no _right_ to touch me." Harry's voice was a low scream.

Draco regarded him patiently. "Harry," he said, "I may have missed something, but I did my research carefully, and I don't think I did. Have you had a lover since your Weasley girl died?" With carefulness aforethought, he had decided not to insult any of Harry's dead friends. "Have you had a date, for that matter?"

Harry's face crumpled as if he'd eaten a lemon. "I don't take it up the arse, Malfoy, if that's what you're asking."

"How would you know?" Draco asked, now sure that the answer to both his questions was "no." "You dated Weasley for a few weeks, if I remember correctly, maybe a month." He'd had to work hard to capture those memories of sixth year, but once he became obsessed with Harry, it was easier. Every prior memory of him stood out with preternatural clarity, then. "And that was _eleven years ago_, Harry, and nothing since. I don't think you really have any idea whether you're gay or straight."

He took a step forward, now careful both because of the bruise and his erection, which was hard enough to ache. Harry retreated a corresponding pace backwards. Draco rolled his eyes, and with an effort held himself still.

"Eleven years without someone touching you," Draco said softly. "And you're surprised that you reacted so strongly to that dream, Harry? It doesn't have that much to do with sexual preference, you know. You're touch-starved. Anyone touching you at this point is going to feel so good you won't know what to do with yourself."

"People have touched me," Harry said tightly. "People pat me on the back, and sometimes I get a hug." He shook his head, as if the statement sounded ridiculous to him, and then demanded, "And even if that was true, why the fuck would _you _care? You don't have a right to interfere in my life, Malfoy."

"Someone has to." Draco's own irritation was rising, now, but he had known he'd have to get through barriers like this, and he had all the time he needed. Harry wasn't going anywhere. He softened his voice. "You deserve better than what you have right now, Harry, and you need it. No one else seems that interested in giving it to you. The other Aurors just see the amount of work you do. The Ministry will bleed you dry and then wonder why you collapse or kill yourself one fine morning. People who _might_ still care about you in the wizarding world care about the Boy-Who-Lived, not the man you are."

"None of that matters," Harry whispered. Draco knew it was rage that made his voice so soft, not realization of the truth, which was a pity. "This is the life I chose, Malfoy. Maybe what you say is true, but it's still my choice. If I want to bleed myself dry, as you put it, then that's what I'll do."

"Who talked to you after your friends died?" Draco asked.

Harry's eyebrows came together now. "What kind of question is that?"

"A fairly simple one, I'd think," said Draco. The part of Harry's life he'd had the most trouble learning about was the few months right after he killed the Dark Lord. The newspapers were full of the happy, cheery official story, and quotes from interviews with Harry where he said that he knew he had to do the right thing. He hadn't established a visible routine at the time, and everyone else's perceptions of him were too blinded by _pre_conceptions. By the time he became an Auror, he was already the closed-in man he'd been for the last decade. "Who talked to you? Who did you confess your grief to? Whose shoulder did you cry on? There must have been people eager to comfort you."

Harry stared at him a moment longer, then said, his voice icy, "You really think I'd approach the people who only wanted to comfort the Boy-Who-Lived, Malfoy? You're not the captor I thought you were."

And that told Draco the truth of his long suspicions. He nodded. "You just put your grief behind a stoic mask," he said. "And everyone else watched you, but they couldn't see a break in it, so they concluded that you really did let all your pain out when you killed the Dark Lord. When, in fact, you've just caged it up, and never dealt with it at all." Mentally, he adjusted his plan to better Harry's life a little. It would have to include sessions with a Healer, unless he could persuade Harry to talk to him. Draco had studied enough to know what basic necessities someone so starved of them as Harry was needed, but he didn't know all the mental aspects in detail.

"I dealt with it," said Harry. "I've moved on."

"No, you haven't."

"_God_, I hate you." And there was passion in Harry's voice, which Draco was prepared to count as a step forward. "You don't know me, Malfoy. You might think you do, after two years of spying, but it takes more than that to get inside a person's head. And you might as well know right now that this isn't going to work. I'll never surrender to you, go to bed with you, or do anything else that you want me to."

"Yes, you will," said Draco, and reached down into the water. Harry scurried backwards again, seeming terrified that he'd go for his erection. Draco gave him an amused smirk, but filed away the notion for later. Among other things that might prove interesting to expose Harry to was the sight of someone else wanking, since he refused to do it himself so far. He was actually pulling his wand from the strap that held it along his inner thigh, though. "Because you need it so much, Harry, that you'll have to. You're touch-starved, but also starved for stimulation of your mind, for companionship, for someone to talk to. Your body wants them, even if your mind insists it doesn't need them."

"Malfoy, stop—"

By then, though, Draco had already aimed his wand, and intoned a soft, "_Silesco._"

Harry's muscles went limp, and Draco moved forward, catching him before he could slump into the water. He laid his wand gently on the edge of the pool, then reached for one of the bottles of shampoo on the stones.

Harry was trying to whisper something, though Draco knew it was difficult with his mouth as slack as it was. "Don't…touch…me…"

"That's not possible, Harry," said Draco quietly, and began to comb his fingers through Harry's hair, before scooping up a handful of water and dashing it over his head. "Just be quiet and enjoy."

"You're…mad."

"Not mad," Draco pointed out calmly. "Obsessed. There's a difference."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

_No, there bloody well isn't, _Harry thought bitterly.

But just then, Draco began combing the shampoo into his hair, and he felt the sensation as an overload that nearly fried his nerves.

_Oh, shit._ Ancient memories were rushing back, of what had always happened to him when Ginny ran her fingers through his hair. It had nearly drugged him with pleasure, so sensitive was his scalp. Even the harsher tugging tended to send him deeper into a haze, rather than awaken him from it.

And no one had touched him like that in longer than eleven years, so if Malfoy's (_insane_) theories were correct, the result was going to be even more intense than it used to be.

Harry panted softly. The warmth of the pool seemed to have moved inside his head. With every pull, every loop of Malfoy's fingers around a particularly stubborn curl or snag, every scratch on his scalp from blunt nails, the warmth grew deeper and the daze grew worse.

Then Malfoy poured a handful of hot water over his hair to wash the shampoo out, and Harry moaned. Malfoy noticed immediately, of course, and paused in what he was doing, his hand tracing a trail of sparks around the side of Harry's cheeks.

He didn't say anything, which was what Harry had half-feared, but, of course, being Malfoy and a bastard, he did something worse. He brought his second hand up and dragged it through Harry's hair, sometimes petting, but mostly sinking his fingers deep and deliberately half-clawing.

Harry's eyes were covered with a faint film that had nothing to do with fog on his glasses. And he was hard again, damn it. There was no way that Malfoy, who was supporting Harry against his chest and shoulder, would miss that.

He didn't comment on it, though, instead finishing with Harry's hair, and then beginning to use a bar of soap on the rest of his body. He paused when he reached his nipples, and then his fingers were closing on them, pinching as he had in the dream. Harry felt them harden, and his body responded, his groin tightening so much it hurt. Throbs of painful pleasure gathered halfway down his chest, and the enforced languor of the spell in his muscles only increased the feeling.

"Harry," Malfoy whispered, and blew a puff of air across his ears. His breath was cool compared to the warmth of the water that had been running across them, and Harry shivered convulsively. Perhaps the spell was wearing off, a little, he thought in futile hope. "Would you let me make you come? I'd like to." His hand hovered, then darted beneath the surface of the water and closed on Harry.

Harry bucked into the hand, a breathy groan breaking past his lips. It just felt so damn _good_, and it was so damn _unfair._ He could feel his balls drawing up from just that simple touch.

In a panic, he fought his rising orgasm, and won a breathless moment free of it to spit, "_Don't touch me, Malfoy._"

Yes, the spell was fading. He had command of his own muscles a moment later, and he used it to pull himself free of Malfoy's arms, roughly, though he really would have liked to turn and knee him in the groin. He gritted his teeth as his erection hurt wildly for a moment, but at least he was free.

Of course, that still left him balanced on the edge, and he had no idea how he would get out of the pool without coming. He controlled his breathing and bent over, bracing himself with one elbow on the stones.

"I meant it," Malfoy said, into the silence.

Harry glanced up. He couldn't remember hating anyone in the last decade as much as he'd hated Malfoy right at that moment. Even Dark wizards who hurt dozens of other people weren't targeting him personally, unless Harry came too close and they wanted to frighten him away. Malfoy had introduced himself into Harry's life for that sole purpose, and Harry hated his incomprehension of that fact almost as much as he hated the basic fact itself. Why did Malfoy _care_?

"Meant what?" he asked, and hated, too, how breathy his voice was.

"That I won't fuck you until you're ready." Malfoy tilted his head to the side. "I don't count this, really, because I still asked your permission. But should I tell you how I'd like to do it?"

He gave Harry no chance to refuse. "In a bed, of course. That's the proper way. We'd have all the time in the world, and I'd suck your cock first. I usually prefer to tease my partners, to keep them on the edge for hours. In your case, I don't think I should. Besides, I've been waiting years for you.

"Can you imagine it, Harry? My mouth around you, warm and wet like the water is, but with even more suction? Pulling on you, draining you, tugging your come out of you?"

Harry shivered. "Malfoy," he said weakly, "stop."

"No, I don't think I will," he whispered. "That's probably something you've never experienced, either, have you, Harry? But that's all right. You can imagine it well enough, I think.

"You don't need to save anyone else when you're flat on your back, having your cock sucked." Harry wished he would _stop saying that._ The sound of his voice lingering over the "k" sounds was driving Harry insane. "Or maybe you'd prefer to be sitting upright, while I kneel between your legs. You'd probably like that better, wouldn't you, Harry, as much in control as you like to be? I don't even mind when someone grabs at my hair, though I don't like having my face smashed into my partner's groin. But you could guide me back and forth, and sometimes I'd only lick at you, and sometimes I'd curl my tongue and my teeth both around you and suck as if I were making you give me your blood instead of your come, and I'd cup you with my tongue and hold you still for a moment while my lips worked at you, and I'd breathe words that you wouldn't be able to hear, but which you could _feel_—"

Harry sobbed, feeling as though someone had punched him in the stomach with a handful of white fire, and came.

He'd forgotten what it was like, this pleasure, rushing down through his groin and then spreading out through him, sending sparks spinning across the inside of his eyelids, hanging him between heaven and earth before tossing him violently back down. And he certainly didn't remember shuddering as though he were having a fit before, or half-shouting, his neck arching so far back his head hurt as he emptied himself.

The pleasure left him hollow, and he shook, head bent, arms folded across his chest. The warm water felt cold now.

Malfoy's arms curled around him and dragged him close, and Harry promised himself that if the bastard said _one word_ in a smug or triumphant voice, he would dredge up the strength to turn around and punch him.

Instead, Malfoy just whispered, "I knew you'd be beautiful," and then called out, "Trippy!"

And that was absolutely all Harry heard, as either his own exhaustion or the release or another spell swept him up and dropped him again—into sleep, this time.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Draco ran the back of his hand gently over Harry's cheek, marveling. He knew he couldn't possibly look healthier already; besides, the flush he had was probably just from the heat. But his face did seem to have relaxed, and his lips were parted as he slept, instead of pressed together so hard his teeth ground, the way he usually looked when he was in bed in his flat.

Of course, it wasn't going to be that easy to make him come again. Harry would be warier next time, and most likely incredibly angry when he woke up. But, for now, Draco felt both extreme smugness that it had happened and a surge of protective feeling that he knew stemmed from causing Harry an orgasm with his voice alone. No one else could do that.

_No one else will ever have the chance._

Trippy appeared beside the pool with a crack. "Master Malfoy is wanting Trippy?" she squeaked.

"Yes." Draco switched his attention to her. "I want you to dry Harry off, help him into pyjamas, and then put him into my bed. I'll be in shortly, when I've dried off myself."

"Master Harry is being a better boy?" Tripped asked hopefully, as she took the sleeping and sated man from Draco's arms.

"Eventually, he will be," Draco murmured, watching as Trippy bore Harry towards the pile of towels. Then he settled back against the side of the pool and snaked his hand beneath the water. He had himself to take care of.

Not that it was going to take much, when he had the image of Harry bending double behind his eyelids.

And then he could anticipate at least a few hours of sleep with Harry in warmth and comfort before Harry woke and, doubtless, tried to kill Draco at finding that they shared a bed.

Draco smiled. He was looking forward to it.


	5. Sophisticated Auror Techniques

_Chapter 5—Sophisticated Auror Techniques_

Harry gave a little _hmm_ sound and snuggled deeper into the sheets. He didn't think he could remember ever being this _happy_ to be in bed before. Usually, he was planning what he should do the next morning, or concentrating on the paperwork he'd brought home for the weekend, and was ready to wake at the chirp of his clock. But now, his limbs felt as if they were made of packed blankets, and the intense warmth at his back made him just want to—

_Warmth?_

Harry was awake in a moment, and staring at the far wall of a room that was definitely not his own. The person behind him gave a little sigh and cuddled closer.

Harry lay still, cataloguing other differences in those moments before memory rushed back upon him. The pyjamas he wore were made of silk, not the practical cotton he liked. He lay with someone's arm over his back and someone's leg jammed between his, which never happened. He wanted to close his eyes and go back to sleep, likewise not a normal occurrence—

And then he remembered, and closed his eyes with a grimace.

More than anything else, he felt weary. Why in the world had he given in and let Malfoy affect him like that? Surely he wasn't so hard up as to come at the sound of an enemy's _voice_. It had been letting go his calmness at all that affected him. He shouldn't have been so disconcerted by that dream, but simply accepted it as a torture technique. He'd borne worse.

He had to believe that. The only other explanation he had was Malfoy's; he was helpless putty in the hands of anyone who would touch him for more than a moment. And that was completely and totally unacceptable.

_This is my fault, _he thought. _Malfoy could never have got to me if I didn't let him get to me. And surely, by now, he's had his fun, and whatever he wanted, he's obtained. _A dull flush crept over his cheeks at the thought of the picture he must have made during his orgasm. Malfoy had more than enough material to fuel his twisted wank fantasies now. _I'll talk to him as one adult to another, and get him to recognize that this is just silly, keeping me as a prisoner in his house. He'll listen. He should, shouldn't he? I never heard that he was mad before this, or wanted to do anything to jeopardize his family's reputation._

"Good morning, Harry."

Harry steeled his resolve and moved away, turning slowly over. Malfoy lay behind him, looking a bit regretful as his hand slipped from Harry's chest, but almost immediately resuming a smile. He was naked except for a pair of pants. Harry made himself ignore that.

"Good morning, Malfoy," he said. This was what a good Auror would do, he told himself, keep calm and give the enemy just enough rope to hang himself with. "I was thinking I'd leave this morning."

"Well, that's an improvement over trying to kill me the way I thought you would," Malfoy said calmly. "But I'm afraid it's still impossible, Harry."

Harry kept himself from grinding his teeth. _Careful, careful. Losing one's temper is not a sophisticated Auror technique. _"Why, Malfoy?" he asked. "Someone's going to notice I'm missing soon. If they haven't already." He thought it was the middle of the night, from the way his stomach seemed stuck to his spine. _A whole day of missed work. Wormwood's probably going mad, wondering where I am._ "You can't want them to find me. Kidnapping and torturing an Auror leads to a year in Azkaban at the very least, you know."

"I took care of that already," said Malfoy, with a lazy wave of his hand. "I created a replica of you and tipped it down those stairs outside your flat. Currently, they think that you're in St. Mungo's, in a coma due to a bump on your head. All the replica has to do is breathe and move its eyes occasionally and swallow what they pour down its throat, and they think it's you." Malfoy's smile was wide and slow and utterly infuriating, Harry found. "Why wouldn't they? It's virtually all that you did to interact with other people the last few years of your life."

"I can't stay," Harry said tightly. "What are your friends going to say about a permanent houseguest, Malfoy, especially one who doesn't want to be here?"

"The ones whom I can trust with this already know about it." Malfoy stretched his arms above his head, arching his back as if he wanted Harry to admire the ripple of the muscles on his chest. Harry refused to do that. "And the ones I don't trust will never know. My mother doesn't really approve, as such, but she accepts it. We're having dinner with her tonight, in fact."

Harry felt the last of his resolve to be calm and adult slip away, as much as he'd wanted to keep hold of it. "Why the _fuck_, Malfoy?" he spat. "Do you hate me that much? Or maybe the people I help that much?"

Malfoy's eyes narrowed. "You have no idea what I hate, Harry, because you haven't taken the time to get to know me," he said. "But, to answer your rude and impertinent question, no. I care about you that much."

Harry let his head drop back, and he laughed, helplessly. It was all he could do—though, if the whirling, churning emotions in his gut were any clue, not all he would be able to do soon. "Kidnapping someone and forcing him to—to blow his load in front of you is caring, Malfoy? Remind me never to get on your bad side."

"Oh, you already have." Malfoy's eyes were half-lidded when Harry looked again. "Denying yourself the way you have been. Hurting yourself needlessly. There were times I hated you so much I could barely breathe, and other times I hated your friends, for dying and leaving you alone."

"Don't you talk about them," Harry breathed. "Don't you _dare_ talk about them."

"I will if I want to." Malfoy levered himself up on one elbow. "No one else ever does, do they, Harry? You've got no one left to mourn with, and the others think your grief is too sacred to intrude on. I'm here to tell you it's not, Harry. Not when it makes you act as irrationally as you've been doing."

Harry felt the emotions surge through him, clenching and pressing on his gut, driving him forward. And, in fact, they drove his fist forward a moment later, hard enough to make Malfoy's head snap backwards and one cheekbone crack in with a sharp sound.

Malfoy just lay there for a moment.

And Harry launched himself into motion, because when one set of sophisticated Auror techniques failed, the other—the set that led towards hurting his enemies and escaping from their clutches—had to come into play.

He pushed Malfoy back in the bed, and kicked hard at his kneecap, making him yowl and, not incidentally, spread his legs wide. Yes, there was his wand, in the strap along his thigh. Harry reached for it.

Malfoy curled his leg around Harry's back and pulled, viciously, making Harry tumble on top of him. His skin felt like it was on fire, which Harry did his best to ignore. Instead, he twisted around and grabbed for the wand again.

"Trippy!" Malfoy yelled.

_Oh, no_. Fueled by desperation, Harry lunged, and yanked the wand free just as the house-elf appeared in the room.

"Stop—" Malfoy began.

"_Mobilicorpus_," Harry snapped, overriding him, and gestured with the wand. It felt unfamiliar in his hand, the core fighting him as his magic surged through it, but it was still a wand and he was still a wizard, and in the end it obeyed. Malfoy levitated up from the bed, and Harry hastily spun him so that his head pointed at the floor, and then shot him towards the ridiculously high ceiling, at least ten feet above. No one needed a room that high, but at least this meant Malfoy would take serious damage should Harry let him fall.

Trippy squeaked and wrung her hands, or at least Harry thought so from the motion in the corner of his eye. He never looked away from Malfoy for a moment. "Call her off, Malfoy, or down you go," he said as calmly as he could around his own panting breaths.

Malfoy didn't respond for a long moment. Then he sighed. Harry turned him around, and saw him feeling at his cheek where the punch had gone home. Harry felt a surge of vicious satisfaction.

"_Incarcerous_," Malfoy murmured.

Harry had a moment to wonder how he planned to accomplish that spell without a wand before ropes burst out of the sides of the bed and grabbed his arms and legs, stretching them wide. He dropped the wand at the shock of the sudden clutch around his wrist, though he tried hard to maintain it. He found himself on his back, then, and fighting for breath, while Trippy hastily, gently, lowered Malfoy to the floor.

_Goddamn son-of-a-bitch bastard!_ Harry fought the ropes, though he'd learned enough about this stupid spell through using it to know it would do no good. Malfoy stood up and came over to the edge of the bed, picking up his wand, which he spun idly between his fingers as he watched Harry struggle.

At last, Harry fell limp, panting. He turned his head and glared at Malfoy. His glasses had fallen off, and all he could see was a blond blur. "Going to rape me now, I suppose, Malfoy?" he asked.

"You are obsessed with rape, Harry," Malfoy murmured. "One would think that you _wanted_ me to."

His other hand, the one not holding the wand, drifted out. Harry flinched back, sure that Malfoy was about to punch him in turn, but the fingers gently rubbed over his neck, his chin, the edge of his cheek instead. They came near his mouth, and Harry counted seconds, waiting for the perfect moment, then lunged and bit. Malfoy swore and barely got his hand out of the way in time.

Then he _laughed._

Harry shut his eyes in defeat. "I don't understand you at all," he whispered.

"Of course you don't," said Malfoy. The bed shifted as he sat down next to Harry. Harry refused to look at him. "Because you aren't used to caring about yourself at all."

Harry opened one eye. "Just because I don't live your oh-so-snobby, poncey lifestyle, Malfoy—"

"Oh, it's more than that, Harry," Malfoy interrupted. "I could tolerate you being a Gryffindor, you know. Noble save-the-world rot and all that. But you don't relax even when it absolutely wouldn't matter whether you did or not. You punish yourself when you have the chance, and no one is going to notice and scold you for it. You feel guilty over the sleep and the food and the pleasure your body needs. If you could go without food and sleep, I don't think you'd use either, at all."

"They slow me down," Harry growled, irritated that Malfoy couldn't see the _point_. Or maybe he was irritated because he was in pyjamas and tied on Malfoy's bed. That could have been part of it, too. "And I don't think I can save everyone, Malfoy. But I can help _some_ people, and the longer you keep me here, the fewer it'll be." He twisted restlessly again, the fact that he'd spent a whole day in bed, doing _nothing else,_ inspiring him with something close to panic. "There's no reason for this, let me _go_—"

Malfoy sighed and stood. "I didn't want to do this," he announced to no one in particular, "because I didn't want you thinking about work at all. But since you're doing it anyway, I might as well show you this."

He walked across the room to a piece of furniture Harry couldn't identify without his glasses, but which he thought was a wardrobe or bookshelf of some kind. After a few moments of shuffling among sheaves of parchment, Malfoy brought out a scroll and came back, dropping it in front of Harry.

"Read that," he said.

"I can't—"

"Of course," Malfoy murmured, and searched for his glasses until he found them and slid them over Harry's nose. Then he picked up the scroll and held it in front of his face, unrolling it now and then when Harry indicated with a grunt and a nod that he was ready to read further.

It was a record of all the captures he'd made since he started working at the Ministry, with numbers beside them: how long it had taken him to get a conviction, how long it had taken him to put the pieces together and find the right evidence to make an arrest, how long, when he had to chase or duel a subject, it had taken him to do that. Harry, noticing roughly the same amount of time repeated over and over, frowned in confusion. _Is Malfoy trying to show me how efficient my partners were?_

And then he realized it. Starting from about three years ago, his eighth year as an Auror, the times increased. Cases that would once have taken him a week to solve increased to two weeks, then to three. He chased for a longer stretch of time. Duels took him longer, even when he'd not been sick or when the wizard he fought was spectacularly poor at offensive spells.

Slowly, slowly, he declined, though he hadn't noticed—and certainly the Ministry had made no comment on it, probably because his work was still faster than that of most other Aurors, and they attributed some of it to the constant change in partners.

Harry clenched his hands in the ropes. "So I'm getting older," he said shortly. "I—"

"It's not that, Harry," said Malfoy. "You haven't suffered any sudden decline in your health, and no more stress than you've subjected yourself to since first becoming an Auror. I'll grant that, at your present age, although of course you're still perfectly fit—" Harry tried to ignore the sensation of being studied like a piece of meat "—you can't run as fast as an eighteen-year-old, but your record in other things should be improving as you learn more and gain more experience. It's not. Do you know why?"

Harry turned his head away.

Malfoy gripped his chin and turned it back. Harry tried to use his glare to show him how _thoroughly annoying _he was, but Malfoy didn't seem to take the hint. "You've been eating even less than normal," he said quietly, "in these last few years. You've been sleeping less, probably because your mind won't let go of work. And your health is starting to decline from the sheer lack of companionship, Harry. Whether or not you like it, you _need_ friends more than you think."

Harry bared his teeth, and wished Malfoy would bring a finger near his mouth again. "I get seven hours of sleep a night, Malfoy—"

"Just because you lie down at midnight and get up at seven doesn't make it seven hours of sleep, Harry," Malfoy interrupted. "I've watched, and had people watch. You usually lie awake at least an hour before you fall asleep, and that's got worse and worse in the last few months."

Harry let out a frustrated huff of breath. The hell of it was—

Was—

Malfoy was _right._ Harry had known, vaguely, that he didn't feel as healthy as he used to, but he had made sure to keep sleeping and eating, and so he hadn't known what else could be wrong. And he supposed relaxation from stress could be said to be vital. He'd seen other Aurors collapse from the workload and be sent off on holiday for a week, sometimes even a month, if they'd been working a particularly hard case.

He'd just never imagined that those things could apply to _him_. He was the different one, the one who didn't have emotional connections and so could work constantly and well, indifferent to outside pressure. It was a rather crushing blow to find out he was mortal after all.

But he couldn't afford to ignore the reality. Sooner or later, his performance would be bad enough to force the Ministry to notice, and since Harry wouldn't take a holiday, they'd sack him. And Harry knew, _knew_, that he'd commit suicide once that happened. He didn't want that to happen. He couldn't help people then.

It was rather disconcerting, to have his life and his death staring him in the face all at once.

He took a deep breath and relaxed as much as he could in his bonds. He'd promised himself to be reasonable when he woke up. He still wanted to do that, even if the method he'd have to use had changed.

_Sophisticated Auror techniques, _he reminded himself. _You can do this. You can be an adult about this._

"Listen, Malfoy," he said. "How long were you thinking of keeping me here?"

Malfoy's face flushed. "You're only thinking of staying to improve your performance on the job," he said.

"Yes," Harry admitted, meeting his eyes. He wouldn't lie. If Malfoy was really in love with him, or something like it, Harry owed him more than to pretend he was staying for any other reason than this. "But if you're right, I can't afford not to. So. A month of your—care?" The last word still dripped with sarcasm; he couldn't help it. "Would that be enough?"

"It would be a start."

Harry sighed. "Listen. If I agree to stay here, not attempt to escape, and go along with anything short of rape—"

"_What_ is your obsession—"

"Will you let me go at the end of a month, and stay away from me after that?"

Malfoy bit his lip, and fell silent, staring at him. Then he said, as if reasoning out the bargain in his mind, "You have to call me Draco."

Harry blinked, and nodded. "Done."

"You have to be honest," said Malfoy. "Actually give this a chance. Not lie and say something isn't affecting you when it is."

Harry nodded again. He was actually fairly confident he could do that and still ride this out without any permanent damage. Malfoy might be right about him needing better food and rest than he'd been getting, but he wasn't right about _everything_. Harry wouldn't turn into Malfoy's obedient little fucktoy. "I can do that, Malf—Draco."

Malfoy half-closed his eyes and gave a little shiver, as if hearing his name from Harry's lips affected him. Harry rolled his own eyes. _He's far gone, and I don't even know why._

"Then I promise," said Malfoy, and waved his wand, unbinding the ropes from Harry's arms and legs. Harry sat up, shaking his wrists and rubbing them, folding his legs in and out to restore the circulation, all the while keeping a cautious eye on his captor.

"It's been nearly twenty-four hours since you had anything to eat," said Malfoy, holding his arm out. "Would you like to come have breakfast with me?"

"If you put some clothes on," Harry muttered.

That startled the other man into laughter. Harry watched him from beneath half-lowered eyelids, and breathed a tiny sigh of relief.

_At least I can recover more easily this way than if I'm being thrown around, tied up, and confined to bed. And all the while, he'll think I'm going along with every plan of his, and won't think to question me more deeply._

_This really _is _a sophisticated Auror technique._

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Draco saw the calculating look on Harry's face, and nearly gave himself away with a smirk. It wouldn't do to let Harry know how easily Draco could read him.

_No doubt, he thinks he'll get away with this, that I can't do anything to really change his mind._

_As if his willing participation doesn't get us through one barrier already._

Draco was confident he'd chosen his solutions well, that what he'd give Harry was actually what Harry needed. Come the end of the month, if Draco had done his job well enough, Harry wouldn't wish to part from him. And if he didn't manage to convince Harry—well, then he didn't deserve another chance. Malfoys played to win. Draco intended to.

_A month to seduce him. I can manage that._

He glanced back to Harry's clear green eyes, now shining with determination to win the game at any cost. Harry probably didn't even realize what a change that made from his usual lack of expression—or how it made Draco's cock twitch.

_And this is worth every effort I have to make._


	6. Like Butter

_Chapter 6—Like Butter_

Putting on pyjamas was a small sacrifice to make for breakfast with Harry, Draco thought, especially when Harry took one look at him and ducked his head, flushing. Draco snorted in amusement. He knew the pyjamas were silk, but Harry seemed more embarrassed by the sight of him in them than he had by the sight of Draco mostly naked.

_Perhaps it's just because he has to imagine me now, instead of seeing me, _thought Draco, and faked a yawn so that he had the excuse of lifting his arms to stretch over his head. Harry _was_ looking; perhaps he didn't even realize what he was doing yet, but he would.

_I'll make sure of that._

"Trippy," he said to the house-elf, who had retreated into a corner of the room once she realized that, as she would say, "Master Harry is being a good boy," "will you fetch the breakfast that I asked you to prepare from the kitchen? And have Hoppy help you bring in the table."

"Master Malfoy," said Trippy, and bowed low, vanishing in the middle of the bow.

Turning back, Draco surprised a slightly disgruntled expression on Harry's face. "What's the matter?" he asked, prepared for an argument. Everything had been going well so far, if one ignored the large, purpling bruise on his cheek. That meant they were due a disagreement, because nothing with Harry was ever this easy.

"I'm just used to living without house-elves, I suppose," said Harry, and waved one hand as if to dismiss the matter.

Draco didn't wish to dismiss the matter. "And you think that I should be, too?" he asked. "Just because you don't have a sense of taste, or, for that matter, inherited house-elves—"

"I had one," Harry interrupted calmly. "Kreacher. He used to belong to the Black family." His eyes glittered with something Draco didn't exactly like. "But I freed him. He didn't take kindly to that."

Draco leaned forward. Even though Harry had undoubtedly meant to start trouble, this was the perfect chance to bring up something that had puzzled him since he began his study of Harry. "What happened to the money Black left you, Harry? And your own fortune? I know the Potter vault was considerable at one time, and I don't suppose you could have given _all_ of it away to orphans and widows."

Harry flushed.

Draco sat down hard on the edge of the bed. "You did," he said. "You really _did_, didn't you?"

Harry shrugged, avoiding his eyes. "It was—there were many people who suffered a lot more than I did during the war, Draco," he said stiffly. Draco had to hand it to him; he made it sound as if the name belonged to a person he only mildly disliked, rather than utterly detested. "So I used the money to supply a group of wizards who searched out the neediest cases and helped them replace what they'd lost. Sometimes that was missing limbs, sometimes that was a destroyed home. Or—other things."

"You can't possibly have done that," said Draco flatly. He considered himself an expert on all things Harry Potter after two years' study. "You would have had constant owls flying to your flat, and the only ones I saw came from the Ministry and the _Daily Prophet_."

Harry raised an eyebrow at him. "Do you think I wanted my name associated with it? Of course not. Then the wizarding world would have only seen the work they were doing in the shadow of my name, and not as what it was: the will and dedication of a few very good people. I wanted to set them absolutely free. And I did."

"They would have had to report to you on the funds they were spending, at least, and ask your advice about particularly hard cases—"

"Why?" Harry's other eyebrow rose to join the first. "They were the ones doing the research, not me. I wouldn't trust them to complete Auror work without first knowing the truths about cases, and it would be the same thing with me and philanthropy. The most useful thing I could do was give them the money and get out of their way. Besides, all their work is public. If they were misusing money, I would have heard about it by now."

"What group did you _start_, Harry?" By now, Draco had a nasty suspicion growing in the back of his mind.

"They call themselves the Aesculapius Foundation," said Harry. "Someone with more education than me chose that name, I'll have you know. Had to look up what the ruddy word meant."

Draco put a hand over his eyes and gave a small groan. "They contributed part of the money for Mother's legal fees when she was arrested, despite the Ministry having no evidence against her," he muttered. "And they helped supply Severus with some of the money he needed to survive, too, though I suppose you won't be pleased to know that."

_And neither will Severus._ Draco had long since resigned himself to the fact that Severus found the persistent living of the Boy-Who-Lived a personal insult.

"I got over my grudge against him long ago, Malfoy."

Draco removed his hand from his eyes. _Oh, no, you don't. _"But not against me, it seems," he pointed out. "Since you can't even bring yourself to say my first name."

Harry flushed again. He spent a lot of time doing that. Draco liked it, but would have preferred that it happen for other reasons. "I did get over my grudge against you from Hogwarts," he muttered. "My grudge against you now is much more recent, and founded on your being a nutter."

"I prefer 'eccentric,'" said Draco, and then turned his head as Trippy and Hoppy popped back into the room, carrying the table and the breakfast. He would doubtless have to teach Harry proper appreciation of money, too, at some future date, but that could wait. "Ah. Set it up in the middle of the room, please. Trippy, fetch some chairs."

"Yes, Master Malfoy!" Trippy set down the seven plates she held in the middle of the table, while Hoppy, a younger house-elf whom the Malfoys had only owned for five years, fussed about the legs of the carved table.

"That's a breakfast?" Harry asked, his voice faint.

"Hmmm?" Draco studied the plates. A selection of fresh fruit, including strawberries and blueberries. Eggs as fresh, scrambled on one plate and poached on a second. Bacon that could, honestly, rival what Hogwarts produced. Toast cooked to a very soft gold; Draco hated it when it was too crispy. Two platters of pancakes, one for either of them. Hoppy waved a hand, and the eighth plate floated over and joined the rest; this held butter, cream, molasses, and two cups of pumpkin juice. "What's the matter, Harry, not see something you like?"

"It's too _much._"

Draco snickered and moved over to the far side of the table. "I don't think so, Harry. Now, join me before I decide that you aren't keeping our side of the bargain and tie you to the bed. Please."

Harry said something else under his breath, but luckily gave in and sat down on the other side of the table (Trippy had brought the chairs and vanished again). Cautiously, he picked up the nearest goblet of pumpkin juice and took a sip, then speared a strawberry with his fork and looked at it as if he didn't know what happened next.

"Eat, Harry," said Draco, concealing his own interest in Harry's side of breakfast behind his pancakes. He prepared them just the way he liked, with a dash of whipped cream here, a set of blueberries to be covered with butter there, and of course eggs and bacon and toast to alternate with them in between bites. "It's not going to attack you."

Harry made a noise that might dispute the truth of that statement, but raised the fork to his mouth and took a bite.

Draco saw his eyes widen in shock. "Good?" he asked mildly, as if he didn't actually care.

"That's not a strawberry," said Harry, pulling back and staring suspiciously at the fruit. "I've never tasted any so sweet."

"You haven't been eating fruit from the Manor's gardens before this," said Draco, and bit into his pancakes. Then he sighed and paused to let the flavors burst in his mouth. The pancakes would have tasted good even without what he added, of course, but together, they broke apart, made the pancake sag and then collapse into softness, and loaded his tongue with a mixture of smooth and sweet and silky textures. Draco licked his lips and reached for his pumpkin juice.

Harry cautiously ate the strawberry. Then he tried some blueberries, and then a piece of toast, and then he spread butter on the pancakes as if trying to decide whether they were more or less likely to spontaneously combust if he did that.

Draco rolled his eyes when Harry licked his fingers, but otherwise watched in quiet satisfaction. Harry didn't even seem aware of the fact that he wasn't hurrying through this breakfast as he'd hurried through too many of his meals in the recent past. He nibbled the strawberries with a thoughtful expression, and then ate several blueberries as if he wanted to compare the tastes. And even while he muttered something about "wasteful," he ate five pieces of toast, more than six pieces of bacon, and more than half his pancakes.

Draco pushed the plate of poached eggs at him. Harry shook his head. "I don't know how you still look so slender, Draco, if they prepare this much food all the time," he muttered.

"Why, thank you for noticing," Draco said, keeping his attention firmly on his plate. He enjoyed Harry's blush without even looking up, so pronounced was it. "As a matter of fact, though, this _is_ large. Trippy and Hoppy are excited about having you here, after hearing me talk about you for so long." He looked up in time to surprise a trace of the blush on Harry's cheeks. "But this is what you need, Harry. Besides, I didn't hear you say that you weren't still hungry."

"I shouldn't eat any more," Harry murmured.

"Why?" Draco surreptitiously cast a spell that would waft the odors of the eggs towards Harry, who turned his head to avoid them. "Who is saying that you can't eat more, Harry, except you?"

"I still have to be able to run when it's necessary," Harry said obstinately. "I'm going back to the Ministry when this is done, Draco, remember? They won't accept a fat Auror."

Draco snorted. "You're carrying a habit of limiting yourself with you into a place where I'll only tell you no when I think something's unhealthy for you. I promise, I don't intend to let you sit around and grow your arse, Harry. I think you should start learning to say 'yes' instead of 'no.'"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Another one of your lessons?" He sat back, nursing his pumpkin juice, and steadfastly ignored the eggs.

"You have no idea," Draco muttered, and Vanished the dishes back to the kitchen. Then he cast several spells at the table so that it grew lower and wider. Harry watched in confusion, only looking suspicious when Draco cast a Cushioning Charm on the surface.

"What is this, Malfoy—Draco?" he corrected himself, quickly. "One bed not enough for you?"

"This is for you, not me," said Draco patiently. "I'm going to give you a massage."

Oh, the look on Harry's face was _priceless_.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"Absolutely not," said Harry flatly, lowering his glass of pumpkin juice to the floor in preparation for a hasty exit. "When I agreed to—to attend the lessons that you're intent on giving me, I didn't say anything about letting you touch me. Besides, I should exercise today. I spent all day yesterday in bed."

"Not all of it," said Malfoy, which made Harry remember the pool, which made him flush again. _Damn him._ "Besides, I do plan to let you exercise, Harry, in ways that you're not even imagining right now." Harry frowned, but before he could pursue what he thought was probably the innuendo for some kinky sex act, the other man added, "But you agreed to go along with what I wanted from you, and to try to _feel_ it. Otherwise, Harry, what incentive do I have to let you go at the end of a month?"

Harry took a deep breath, and tried to ignore the memories of the dream and the pool, which suggested things about his own sensitivity to touch that he hated, and to remember that he'd made this bargain because he had to get Malfoy to trust him _and_ to win. Backing out of it an hour after making it wasn't in the plans.

He started to lie down on the table, but Malfoy clucked his tongue. "Remove the pyjamas, Harry," he said. "You can keep your pants on."

Harry was beginning to wonder when he would faint from all the blood in his body constantly rushing to his face. Malfoy's eyes held a silent challenge, though, which made Harry start stripping.

His Auror instincts jumped up and down in his head and screamed. Rendering himself naked before an enemy was not the smartest thing he'd ever done, Harry knew. But if he wanted to continue to be good at his job, the only thing he really cared about, then he would have to go through with this. Skin crawling, he lay down on his stomach without looking at Malfoy.

Hands promptly gripped his shoulders, not rubbing yet, just seeking—for a good place to begin, Harry supposed. He shivered, and then shrugged, an entirely involuntary movement. He didn't want someone touching him like this.

"Relax, Harry," Malfoy breathed into his ear.

Harry had to close his eyes. "Just get on with it, Malfoy—Draco," he said. _Maybe I'll have to start thinking of him as Draco. When I think one thing and try to say another, it doesn't work._

Draco snorted, but didn't say anything. The fingers kept on probing. Harry was growing more confident as moment after moment passed and they found no place to alight, though. He was too tense for this to work, and Malfoy—Draco—ought to know that he couldn't just let himself go limp on command.

Then Draco made a pleased sound, and the fingers pushed down and seemed almost to pry apart Harry's muscles. Harry yelped, and wondered how in the world this was supposed to be _soothing_.

Then Draco's thumbs both sank into the same place, and it was—

It was like a pot of hot butter being upended in the middle of his back, Harry thought hazily. Suddenly, those fingers were working with his muscles, not against them, coaxing them to relax, driving them towards warmth and softness. Harry became aware he was moaning, softly, and hoped that the fact he had his face buried against the table would muffle it.

Draco's hands worked at his shoulders until Harry couldn't imagine being able to shrug again, then slid lower, towards the middle of his back. Harry frowned. He thought that was a bad thing, but he couldn't remember why. He was drifting somewhere between bliss and paradise.

Then Draco located a knot of tension that made him buck as it suddenly released, and groan, a sound he couldn't have kept in. One hand rose and traveled through his hair. Harry made some nameless, happy sound, and flopped back on the mattress like a boneless fish.

"More," he muttered.

Draco chuckled, but Harry didn't know why, and he didn't particularly care. His whole _body_ seemed greedy for more of that touch, sucking it in like earth sucking in water. But it wasn't cold and wet like rain, it was edged with warmth and compassion and such _pleasure_. Harry buried his head in his arms for a few minutes, then let them simply dangle over the edge of the table.

He lost track of time, of everything but those hands working on him, and the fact that he wanted more and more of it the more it went on. At some point, though, he realized he was drifting towards sleep, and he stirred anxiously. He'd spent all of yesterday asleep; he wanted to stay awake now, and feel more of that touch.

"It's all right," Draco's voice whispered. "We can exercise tomorrow, and I won't let you sleep the day away. We have dinner with Mother tonight, remember? For now, though, _relax._"

Harry exhaled, and breathed out tension, and breathed in rest.

He did try to remember, before he fell asleep, when he'd last felt this good, and sunlit memories of Hogwarts, even softer with distance, were the only things that came back to him.


	7. Harry's Resolve

_Chapter 7—Harry's Resolve_

Harry opened his eyes before Draco woke him again, but this awakening was considerably less pleasant than the other. This time, he remembered immediately what had happened.

He stifled a groan, but only because he was sure that Draco would take that sound as evidence that it was time to begin molesting him. His mind was still rather locked on what had happened.

Waves of shame sped over him, followed by a wave of mingled fear and frustration. _I'm not going to win this game if I give in so easily every time he touches me. Enjoying the food and the rest is one thing. That's—what happened during that massage was obscene, and not something that needs to happen in order to make me feel better. What would I be like as an Auror if I just melted for every Death Eater who offers me a massage?_

He would need to take precautions against this sickening vulnerability. It was just like finding out he had an old wound causing him new trouble, Harry tried to reassure himself. He hadn't known about it. Now he did. Luckily, he had caught it outside of a fatal battle. And unlike a wound that the Healers couldn't cure, there were spells that could fix this—condition.

_For which I need my wand._

Harry bit his lip, while making sure his body stayed relaxed, so that he would appear asleep if Draco glanced at him. _I need to convince him to trust me, so that he gives me my wand. And if I violate my side of the bargain too openly, then he won't have any incentive to keep his._

_But if he throws me out of his own free will…_

_Surely even his patience isn't infinite._

Harry had decided on a new plan by then. He had to make Draco give him his wand, probably by reminding him that he'd given his word not to run away. And then he would proceed to be so annoying that Draco would get rid of him. Draco was expecting distinctly _adult_ behavior from Harry. Behaving like a child wouldn't be hard, and would probably disgust Draco enough to disrupt this strange attraction or obsession he had for Harry.

Harry no illusions that this would be easy. This was the man who had stalked him for two years rather than admit that he simply had no chance and should look elsewhere, for someone who would be glad to give him what he wanted. But Harry was also sure that he would win in the end. Draco's liking for a comfortable life and a partner who wouldn't constantly fight him had to be stronger.

He was going to be careful. He was going to be on his guard. He was going to improve his health and, at the same time, avoid the traps his own body was setting for him.

He congratulated himself on his plan just as a hand descended on his shoulder, gently shaking him, and a soft voice whispered, "Harry? We should get dressed, so that we can attend the dinner with my mother."

Harry let out a long groan, as if waking for the first time, and then froze in the act of stretching his arms above his head. "Malfoy," he breathed, "please tell me we didn't do what I think we did."

"_Draco_," Malfoy said, sounding annoyed. _Improvement number one, _Harry decided, as he blinked sleepily and let his eyes open. "And no, Harry, we didn't have sex. You simply react well to being touched." The lazy amusement was back in his voice. To demonstrate his point, Harry supposed—he couldn't think of any other reason for it—he reached out and ran his hand through Harry's hair.

That lit sparks of feeling all through his body, and made him _pant_. Harry ignored the sensation as well as he could, though, and pulled away with a sigh, meeting Malfoy's gaze. "You've made your point. _Draco._" The other man smirked and nodded. Harry added, "Can I have my wand back, please?"

Draco frowned. "Why do you need it?"

Harry sighed and looked away as if reluctant to confess something. "I—you're probably going to think this is silly, but—"

"Harry, no." His voice had softened, and the next moment the bed dipped as Draco crawled in beside him, arms looping over his shoulders. "Considering what I've done to get my hands on you, I'm not in the position to call what anyone else does silly."

Harry felt a small, squirming worm of guilt take up residence in his gut, but he crushed it ruthlessly. He hadn't asked Draco to do this. If his heart was really going to be broken—which Harry didn't believe; he thought it far more likely that Draco would sulk and rage like a petulant child—then he was the one who'd put himself in the way of getting it broken. No one had prevented him from wanking off to Harry _from a distance_, and then marrying some pure-blood girl and having several dozen Malfoy children. Any gentleness or tenderness he showed stemmed from his obsession. Harry had to remember that.

"I can't stop thinking like an Auror," Harry confessed, bowing his head. "I can't stop thinking of you as an enemy and believing I have to find my wand so I can escape. If I had my wand with me, I think I'd be calmer."

"Or you might want to hex me the next time I tried to teach you something," Draco muttered.

"I meant what I said," Harry said earnestly. "You can have a month." _You won't keep me around for long, though. You're the one who's going to break the bargain. _"But can I _please_ have my wand back? I promise, I won't try to leave the Manor."

Draco considered what he'd said for a long moment. Harry swallowed his bile at the thought of having to beg. He'd done worse in other hostage situations. And long before the end, Draco would despair of having ever invited Harry into his home.

"Very well," said Draco at last. "I'll have Trippy bring it to you, along with the clothes you're wearing for tonight." He gripped Harry's shoulders and gave them a little shake. "But you have to promise me that you won't hex me, or my mother, or even Severus if you see him."

"I promise," said Harry. "The only magic I intend to use is on myself. A few calming spells, for example."

Draco smiled slightly, then called for the house-elf, without taking his eyes from him. Harry was sure he thought he knew everything. That gaze was meant to say he could read the hidden depths of Harry's mind, and nothing there was a surprise to him.

_He wishes. _

Trippy appeared with a bang, and set down a carefully folded pile of cloth in the center of the room, then carried over his wand with a shake of her ears. "Has Master Harry been a good boy?" she demanded.

"Master Harry's been a very good boy," said Draco. "He's agreed to stay here and help cure himself of his sickness."

The elf clapped her hands, making Harry wince; that was all he needed now, to have his wand broken by an elf's enthusiastic applause. "That is being wonderful news, Master Draco!" she squeaked. "So he can have his wand now?"

"Yes, Trippy, he can."

She handed it over. Harry sighed in relief to feel the familiar length of holly and phoenix feather in his hand once more, and nonverbally cast the spell he'd been thinking of, one that would deaden the nerves in the top layer of his skin. Healers used it when they had to apply creams that would otherwise itch intolerably.

A cold feeling washed over him, like being under the Disillusionment Charm, and then the rustle of the blankets against his skin dimmed and, to Harry's delight, so did the burning presence of Draco's hands on his shoulders. Harry relaxed with a slumped little sigh.

"You _do_ seem calmer." Draco sounded startled. _Expecting me to use the spells for some nefarious purpose, no doubt, _Harry thought, opening a lazy eye. "Well, then. Time to see the clothes you have to wear for dinner."

Harry sighed and sat up. "I'm sure it's a torture worthy of others you've planned for me."

"Clothes that actually fit you," Draco said sharply, gesturing for Trippy to hold the robes up. "Is that such a torture, Harry?"

_Sarcasm annoys him. Excellent. _Harry sighed again rather than give the smile he wanted to. "It demands on how poncey they are," he murmured.

Draco ground his teeth. Harry felt like cheering. _I'm going to make life as uncomfortable for you in the next few weeks as you've made it for me, Draco. Even if you stick out the month, you won't want me around ever again. _

_Let the fun begin._

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Draco was growing more annoyed by the moment, which he knew he couldn't show. He'd thought—foolishly, it appeared now—that after the massage Harry would have to admit that he was right, and that he needed this holiday for himself, not just to improve his record as an Auror. But of course that would be common sense, and of course Harry would never do _that_.

He appeared to have withdrawn, again, and even when Draco made his pupils dilate by the simple act of running his hand through his hair, he didn't acknowledge it. Now he looked at the formal robes that Draco had chosen for him with a faint half-smile that made Draco want to shake him.

He forced himself to take a deep breath and regain his self-control. _And what would Harry Potter know about fine fashion? I should have known that he would pull a stupid trick like this. He claims not to care about food, why should he care about robes?_

So, of course, the trick became making him look so fine that he would have to admit it. Draco rather liked the half-helpless Harry he'd had under his hands on the massage table. Of course, getting there was fun, but Draco was frustrated that Harry had rebuilt his walls so quickly and completely.

"Stand up, Harry," he said, and shook out the robes, which were a dark color just between black and deep green. "Let me slip this on you."

"Shouldn't Trippy help me dress?" Harry asked, even as he stood and turned his back to Draco. "I thought that was the practice in pure-blood houses."

Draco's fingers twitched with the urge to touch. Harry had lost weight when he began his ridiculous self-destructive practices, but nothing had yet affected the smooth expanse of his back, which saw just enough sun to keep it tanned, or the tightness of his muscles. Draco blinked when his eyes wandered to the curve of Harry's arse, and stepped up behind him, holding out the robe.

Solemnly, he helped Harry into one sleeve and then another, and then draped his arms over his shoulders to begin the buttons. To his disappointment, the biggest reaction Harry showed was to lightly swat his hands away and murmur, "I knew what buttons were before I came to Malfoy Manor, thanks."

Draco stepped back and let him finish. He smiled despite himself when Harry was done, and conjured a full-length mirror between Harry and the wall with a wave of his wand. Harry seemed a bit startled when it appeared, but looked at his reflection obediently.

"Look at you," Draco breathed. The robes were dark enough to make Harry's green eyes positively shine, which was the main reason Draco had chosen them, but they also fit, unlike the majority of his clothes. Harry appeared to have carried the bad habit of buying only clothes that were too large for him out of childhood. This let a viewer actually have some idea of what his body looked like. "And you wonder why I want you, Harry?"

"I don't see what's so great."

Harry's voice was perfectly perfunctory, even dismissive. Draco ground his teeth, and snapped at Trippy, "Bring my own robes."

"Yes, Master Malfoy," she said meekly, and vanished.

Draco stepped forward and caught Harry's elbow. "Must you be so difficult when we're about to meet my mother?" he whispered.

Harry's eyes widened a bit, then narrowed. Draco couldn't identify the emotion that had gone through them.

"Of course not," he said. "I had forgotten that, to be honest. I promise that I'll be on my best behavior, Draco."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

_I'll get to make a fool of Draco in front of his mother! Oh, all of this is working out so much better than I imagined at first._

Trippy reappeared with a set of robes that Draco climbed into. Harry supposed the robes, a pale color somewhere between white and blue, were fine enough if you liked your clothes high-class and snobby. Only when Draco took his arm and stood in front of the mirror did Harry realize that Draco had probably chosen them because of the contrast they made with Harry's dark robes.

_Oh, for God's sake._

Harry had not appreciated being made a display of when he was the Boy-Who-Lived, and he didn't enjoy it now, either. He barely kept himself from tugging his arm away with the reminder that he couldn't allow Draco to win in this game of annoyance.

"Shall we go?" he asked, pasting on a large, fake smile.

Draco tossed his head, which Harry supposed came from his refusal to say anything nice about the robes. "First, Trippy is going to brush our hair," he said. "You might be accustomed to going to dinner with your hair looking like two doves used it for a nest, Harry, but some of us have higher standards."

"Of course," said Harry, bowing his head with a little sigh as Trippy climbed up on the bed with a comb. "I'm afraid that I just don't fit in here, Draco. Sorry for embarrassing you."

Draco's eyes narrowed suspiciously, but then Trippy was attending to her task, and Harry was busy being pleased that the pulling of the comb barely affected him at all. Draco waited until Trippy largely gave up on Harry's hair and moved on to his. Then he tilted back his head with a luxurious sigh, as if to show Harry how the attentions of house-elves _should_ be appreciated.

Harry watched in spite of himself. Draco's own blond hair parted around the comb much more easily than his own ragged curls did, and he appeared to enjoy the grooming at least as much as a poodle. Harry bit his lip against a growing grin, but then Draco caught his eye through the strands and smiled a slow, sensual smile of his own that made Harry feel a tug of heat in his stomach.

He looked away hastily. _It's only disgust, _he reassured himself. _It's one thing to be affected by him when he actually touches me—and I've taken steps against that—but I'm not allowed to go and find him attractive._

Draco had the nerve to moan softly then; apparently, the comb was stirring feelings in him unrelated to a formal dinner. Harry felt the heat in his stomach grow worse, as if someone were pouring butter down his throat.

If he thought about it, it was rather heady, to have all that attention focused on him, and Draco didn't seem as if he would be losing interest any time soon. Would it be so bad just to give in and let—

_Yes!_ Harry told himself hastily. _Yes, it would be, damn it! This is based on Draco wanting things from you that you're never going to give him. You're not gay, remember?_

Draco must have moved forward, because Harry abruptly felt his warmth much closer to his back than before. He turned, because hot breath on the back of his neck still seemed to affect him negatively in spite of the nerve-deadening spell, but that only gave him another unwelcome surprise.

Draco leaned forward and kissed him.

Harry was relieved to find that his lips weren't as sensitive as the rest of his body, but that only lasted a moment. Then he became uncomfortably aware that Draco meant business, and had experience that he didn't. The tongue that had slipped inside his mouth flicked here and there, as if touching multiple places meant Harry would be more interested, and that seemed to be correct. Then Draco went back to slipping his tongue alongside Harry's, which jostled like several needles prickling him all at once.

Harry told himself he was only moving his tongue because it would have seemed suspicious if he didn't, given their bargain. Besides, shifting his tongue around to get it out of the way didn't count as returning the kiss, did it?

All right, maybe it did when he moved it into Draco's mouth.

At that point, he backed off with a gasp. "Should we arrive for dinner with your mother looking indecent?" he muttered, looking away.

"I just realized we hadn't kissed at all," Draco said, and his voice was too low, and damn it, wasn't there a spell he could perform on his ears to keep himself from being this affected? "And I thought I should correct that, because, well, I kiss my lovers, Harry."

Harry bit his lip and tried to calm his racing heartbeat. "I'm not gay, Draco, I told you," he said.

"That's why I tend to concentrate on the person making me feel good, Harry, and not on the gender of that person," Draco said serenely, and put out his arm. He held it there until Harry, reluctantly, took it. "Shall we go?"

Harry caught a glimpse of them both in the mirror as they turned away. His own face looked like a startled deer's.

Draco's eyes _burned._

_I don't think this is going to be as easy to win as I assumed it was._


	8. A Dinner To Which Many Adjectives

_Chapter 8—A Dinner To Which Many Adjectives Could Be Applied_

Harry found himself wondering how many corridors one house _needed_ by the time Draco escorted him through yet another one, the ceiling arched twelve feet above their heads, the pale walls echoing back the slightest noise they made, the carpets beneath their feet brightly-colored and no doubt the height of good taste in some world Harry wasn't part of. Now and then the usually bare walls did carry a tapestry, or a birdcage with a small, delicate singing bird in it, or a fountain, but Malfoys in general seemed to have less taste for decoration than Harry would have assumed they did.

If he had ever bothered to think about it, of course. Which he hadn't. He had put Draco Malfoy quite happily out of his head after Hogwarts, and he would have remained there forever if he hadn't chosen to intrude himself.

Harry shook his head as he and Draco turned through yet another archway and into a hallway flanked with doors. "Wouldn't it have been simpler for your mother to come to us?" he asked.

"No whinging," Draco said loftily. "That's not polite."

"I was making an observation, Draco," Harry said, and sculpted his voice into the sweet politeness that he used with the Ministry officials when they wanted him to do something stupid. "Evidently, you couldn't recognize that, living as you do in a realm of elevated diction. My apologies."

Draco shot him a narrow-eyed, unimpressed glance. Harry made sure his beam was absolutely _blinding._

_He has to get rid of me if I'm too annoying, doesn't he? He cares more about his reputation than he ever will about me._

And childish as his way of fighting back was, Harry thought it legitimate. Draco was trying to imagine a world for him that he didn't want to share.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

_God knows what Mother will make of him. She already thinks that my courting him is a bad idea._

Draco ignored the temptation to turn around and go back to his bedroom, however. For one thing, he didn't care what his mother thought. He would like to have her approval, but it wasn't necessary. And for another, he didn't intend to let Harry win that easily.

He made sure that his hand was in the middle of Harry's back as they entered the dining hall at last. That was the proper way for a courting couple to walk. Harry didn't know the meaning of the gesture, of course, and Draco didn't intend to enlighten him until he knew that Harry wouldn't react in a barbarous fashion, but his mother would see and understand it.

Narcissa sat at the far end of their broad table, of course, and was just rising to her feet, a necklace of pearls glittering at her throat. Draco took a moment to survey her. Everything about his mother was pale, and had been since his father died. She had pale skin, blonde hair only a few shades less fair than her complexion, gentle blue eyes, and, more often than not, as now, white gowns and garlands of white roses decorating her neck and wrists. Draco could see why some people had thought her fragile, in the past, and even spoken to and of her as if she were a simpleton.

More than one person had regretted that, in the past. Narcissa might move in more limited spheres than Lucius had, or than Draco did himself, but on her own private ground, the ground of high society, few people could challenge her.

Now she conveyed elegant, and eloquent, disapproval by doing nothing more than standing still and raising an eyebrow. Harry flushed. Draco just nodded as if they had received a courteous greeting.

"Good evening, Mother. Harry is here to join us for dinner."

Narcissa looked properly at Harry for the first time. Draco was watching closely, and knew her well. He could see the way her eyes fluttered down in what was almost a blink. She was surprised by his appearance, and, no doubt, how well he looked in the dark robes Draco had chosen for him. Draco ran a hand possessively up and down Harry's spine, and resisted a smirk by the smallest margin. He was going to prove _everyone_ wrong about how well Harry would fit into his life, and that included both Harry and his mother.

"Hello, Mr. Potter," said Narcissa then. "How nice to meet you." She held her hand out, palm down.

Harry either made a wild guess as to what to do, or he had learned more in those few Ministry functions he'd attended than Draco thought he had. He walked over to Narcissa, caught her hand, and kissed the back of it. Draco's mother gave him one of the small cool smiles that was her stock in trade.

"Good evening, Mrs. Malfoy," said Harry. "Draco was telling me what an inspiration you've been to him, and how the life he's led since the war is in fact mostly due to your influence."

Draco stiffened for a moment. Narcissa would resent that implication. She disapproved of Draco's idleness as much as she had of his obsession with Harry, and hinted constantly and softly at how much she wished he would marry and have children, to fill the house with the noise of laughter again. The way that Harry had phrased his supposed compliment, however, was unobjectionable, and protesting it would seem stupid.

Harry had just managed to insult them both quite thoroughly in a small space of time.

"How—nice," Narcissa said. She gave no sign that she thought anything was wrong even in the tightness of her lips, which now slightly broadened their smile, by which Draco knew she was very angry indeed. "Well. I hope you will consider walking around the house after dinner, Harry. Trippy can show you many beautiful rooms and ancient treasures."

Harry stepped away from Narcissa and drew her chair out for her. She had to accept or look insulting, Draco knew, and his mother had always eschewed such obvious insults. She sat, arranging her skirts about her, and Harry gently pushed in the chair again until she sat the perfect distance from the table.

"Thank you, but Draco already showed me enough of the house on the way here," Harry said, and then sat down in the chair next to Narcissa, which meant Draco had to walk all the way around the table to take his place in the chair beside Harry. "It's a lovely place, Mrs. Malfoy."

"Please, call me Narcissa."

_Oh, yes,_ Draco thought, concealing a wince as he sat down next to Harry. _Very angry_. She'd no doubt been counting on using Harry's tour of the house to have some time alone with her son, so that she could tell him what she thought. And that was dashed as well, thanks to Harry's inability to take a hint.

Before Draco could interject himself into the conversation and turn it in a more profitable direction, the first course appeared on their plates. Draco nodded as he studied it. The house-elves had chosen bowls of a cold soup that one of his ancestors, Great-Great-Grandmother Locusta Malfoy, had the credit for inventing. The bowls were silver, and the soup clear and smelling like a garden. Draco wondered how in the world anyone could resist that taste.

Harry didn't seem inclined to try. On the other hand, he plunged his spoon into his soup, lifted several drops of it to his lips, and then slurped. Loudly.

Draco's hand clenched on his spoon hard enough to make it ring off the side of the bowl. He refused to believe that _this_ was luck.

"Harry," he hissed, "please don't do that. We keep a rudimentary code of manners here, at least."

Harry fluttered his eyes open, looking startled. "Oh. I _am_ sorry. I so rarely eat food so good that I'm afraid I forgot myself."

He caught a drop of soup escaping down his cheek with his tongue, and met Draco's gaze with a deliberately unshielded look while he carefully licked his lips free of the wetness.

Draco gave a little snarl. He'd wanted to see a look like that, an unabashed celebration of sensuality—but he'd wanted to see it when Harry finally gave in and let Draco take him of his own free will, _not_ when he was at the same table with his mother. And it affected him anyway, making him harden at once.

_Well. Two people can play this game._

He returned the smile, and then began to make polite conversation with his mother on the affairs of people they both knew, while his hand, invisible from Narcissa's position, dipped under the table.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Harry was having fun.

First, Draco's way of fighting back wasn't working. It undoubtedly would have if Harry hadn't cast the spell to deaden his nerves, but he had, and so the hand running lightly up and down his inner thigh felt more like a biting insect than a touch that would make him crumple and bite his lip. He didn't even have to blush. He knew Draco would hardly show his mother what he was doing.

Second, Draco obviously didn't have any idea why it hadn't worked, and shot him more than one baffled and almost betrayed look.

Third, Harry had managed to turn every dish so far into a feast of rudeness and bad manners, and in less obvious ways than slurping the soup. He could hardly be blamed if he splattered the fish's sauce on the sleeve of Draco's robe; he wasn't used to eating food so posh. He took a large bite of the hot duck, and then _of course_ he had to gulp the wine to cool the burn in his throat. Wine wasn't meant to be gulped, but he didn't know that until Draco explained it to him between clenched teeth. Then Harry looked at him with large eyes and apologized in a soft voice.

Fourth, Draco knew all this and couldn't do anything about it, while Narcissa Malfoy's lip curled more and more, and the sneer entered her eyes. Harry had to look hard to see it, but he'd been trained to read people's faces while they tried to hide things far worse than a bit of contempt. It was there, and he knew he was making himself look worse and worse—a completely unsuitable match for her son.

Draco might think he was independent of his mother, but Narcissa Malfoy's words had an impact. Harry had heard her name mentioned again and again in connection with those Ministry politics he refused to touch, and he had captured the information as he did most pieces that might someday come in useful to an Auror. If she disapproved enough, she would make sure that none of Draco's social circles would greet him and Harry with anything but scorn. Draco, who had an active social life—surely—wouldn't like that.

The biggest danger was making sure that he didn't drink too much wine, and that was hardly a challenge. Harry had set up ambushes before in pubs and other places where not to drink was to stand out and look suspicious. He kept his wand in his sleeve, and when he felt an unpleasant drowsiness intruding on his nerves, he touched it and thought hard about the Sobriety Charm. In a few moments, his senses were clear again.

Then came dessert. Harry concealed a snort. It looked like nothing so much as cream and icing sculpted into a swan. Oh, doubtless there was a cake somewhere under there, but Harry couldn't make it out. Unlike the rest of the dishes, it didn't simply appear. Trippy wheeled it out on a silver cart, and stood proudly behind it while Narcissa and Draco made soft admiring noises.

Harry then decided that he didn't need to conceal his snort. By now, after all, he was supposed to be drunk. He very obviously muffled his laughter in his sleeve, and Draco turned on him at once, eyes narrowed.

Then he said, as if something had only now occurred to him, "Oh, Mother, I didn't tell Harry about the custom when I have a lover here." Harry _knew_ he didn't imagine the way Mrs. Malfoy's mouth tightened at Draco's name for him. "Do you mind if I pursue it?"

"Not at all, Draco." Narcissa pushed her chair gently back and rose from the table. "I find myself not in the mood for dessert, anyway."

Harry didn't know what Draco's custom was, but he knew he didn't want to be left alone here with him while it happened. He started to stand. "Let me accompany you, Narcissa—"

And then he realized Draco's hand had moved from his thigh to his arse, and was cupping it in a distinctly lewd fashion that Narcissa couldn't miss if he stood. His face flushing, he sat back down.

"That is not necessary, Harry." Narcissa's mouth was crimped up like a crumpled tablecloth. "It is true that my son shares his dessert with—all his lovers." She paused delicately, and Harry knew she probably meant the mention of the number to dismay him. It only made Harry more cheerful. If Draco was used to multiple partners, he would get tired of Harry eventually and want to pursue someone else. It was just a matter of time. "I do not wish to intrude."

She left in a swirl of skirts. Trippy was levitating the cake from the center of the cart into the center of the table.

Harry coughed. "I don't think I could eat a bite more—" And then he caught his breath, because Draco's hand had moved off his arse and up to his face. He shot him a glare.

"You've behaved yourself very badly, Harry," Draco breathed. "I know it was all on purpose." He cupped Harry's cheek, his thumb rubbing his lips. "And as a result, I don't think you should have silverware for this meal." He waved his wand, and Harry's plate, fork, knives, and spoons vanished. "I'm going to feed you instead."

"Not hungry, I said," Harry said.

"Sit down," Draco said, and the glint in his eyes had turned threatening. "Or I'll project an image into my mother's bedroom of what you and I did in the pool yesterday."

"You _would _not," Harry said, horrified.

"I would linger on every groan." Draco's eyes sparked. "Sit still."

He leaned forward, cut a piece of the swan's wing, and set it back on his plate. Then he dipped his fingers gently into the cream and held them out towards Harry's mouth. "Come on, now," he whispered.

Harry reluctantly opened his mouth, glaring all the while. Draco had reversed matters so that there was no way he wouldn't win. If Harry just ate the cake, he would still get him to do what he wanted. If he made a show of it, curling his tongue around Draco's fingers, the bastard would enjoy it.

"Bastard," he whispered.

Draco placed the bit of cake in his mouth while he was speaking, and it was swallow or choke. Harry swallowed. Then his eyes widened as the taste burst through his mouth. It had been enhanced with magic, he knew. _Nothing_ was that sweet and sparked on his tongue at the same time, like wine.

"What is that made of?" he demanded.

"A special house-elf recipe," said Draco, his eyes on Harry's face. He had eaten a small bite of it himself while Harry swallowed, but he looked less affected by it. "Isn't it, Trippy?"

"Oh, yes, Master Malfoy!" Trippy bowed and bobbed.

"Open wide, Harry," Draco whispered, and held out another bit of the cake.

The one major drawback of Harry's plan had been that he ate very little; he was more involved in spilling his food creatively, and the course usually vanished before he could take more than a few bites. He was hungry, and the cake was good, and he decided that this was small compared to some things Draco had made him do. He opened his mouth again.

This time, of course, Draco's fingers lingered a moment, stroking up and down his tongue, pushing at the insides of his cheeks. Harry rolled his eyes as his face burned, and swallowed the bite before he snapped, "You're not even subtle most of the time, do you know that?"

Draco didn't respond, but ate another piece himself before he retrieved a second slice, this time from the swan's side. His eyes had the same burning gaze Harry'd seen in the mirror before they left his bedroom.

It abruptly occurred to Harry that Draco was looking only at _him,_ that there was no possible other target in the room for his gaze.

All that attention was focused on _him_.

Harry shifted restlessly, but didn't rise from the chair, mindful of Draco's threat. He did find it harder and harder to concentrate solely on the food as Draco fed him, though. He had to accept that Draco had no other reason to look like that than him, and even if Draco had had numerous lovers in the past and would have them in the future, none of them were here right now. Harry was.

Harry had not thought about being wanted in so long that having all that desire fixed on him at once was—a bit overwhelming.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Draco was losing interest in torturing Harry as he fed him more and more. Yes, he would have carried out his threat if Harry had tried to leave early, but now he'd had his fingers inside Harry's mouth, and had a better sense of how hot it was, and Harry was looking at him with a mixture of fascination and unease that Draco had seen before.

That was part of what seduction was all about, of course. _Lure_ the target. Make him want to come in closer and closer. Make it clear that he was wanted, desired, above all things. That intensity of regard alone was flattering for most people.

And this wasn't most people. This was Harry, Draco's prey for the past two years. And Harry was resisting as dearly as Draco had always hoped he would. A regard that difficult to win was worth fighting for.

He was hard, still, but the longing had settled down to a slow burn in the center of his chest. He knew what he wanted to do as he leaned forward to give Harry the last bite of cake they'd share, and so he did it.

He followed his fingers with his mouth, pressing his lips gently to Harry's and sliding his tongue in through the icing and cream. He mimicked what he'd already done with his hand, pressing his tongue gently against the insides of Harry's cheeks and moving it in quick jabs.

Then he groaned, precisely timing it so that it echoed into Harry's mouth.

Harry jerked, but it wasn't an attempt to get away; it was a motion of surprise, Draco knew. He was out of his chair now, leaning forward with one leg pressed against Harry's hip.

And then he felt Harry's hand rise and brush the back of his head, and that encouraged him to cup Harry's neck and bring him closer, kissing him thoroughly for three heartbeats before letting him go. He sat back slowly, letting Harry have a good look at his hazy eyes, his swollen lips, his mussed hair, and doubtless the icing stuck on a corner of his mouth. He wanted Harry to remember that vision, and remember it was because of him.

Harry's eyes had darkened and glazed, and his hand twitched as if he would reach after Draco.

Draco smiled slightly. _Good enough for tonight. And now, to give him some breathing space._

He rose to his feet. "Good night, Harry," he said. "Trippy will show you to your room."

Harry blinked. "But I thought—" he said, and then stopped.

Draco tilted his head. "You're more than welcome to my bed, Harry," he said softly, rolling the name. "To sleep, of course."

Harry looked more tempted than Draco had thought he would, but in the end he shook his head. "No. Thank you," he added, and then looked a bit flustered that he'd done so.

Draco just nodded. He was willing to wait. Harry's pranks might annoy him, but he was still going to win, because he was _sure_ that he wanted Harry more than Harry wanted not to be wanted.

He flashed him one more smile and turned away.

_He'll be a problem. Of course he will. I won't have it any other way._


	9. A Normal Day, If You Don't Count

_Chapter 9—A Normal Day, If You Don't Count the Sexuality Crisis_

Harry lay in his bed, staring at the ceiling. It was a nice bed, perhaps not as deep or soft as Malfoy's, but so similar that no one sane could make a fuss. Harry had slept his regulation seven hours in it without a problem.

He had awakened at the end of them, and spent the time since staring at the ceiling and trying to find some sort of explanation for the way he'd reacted to Malfoy's kisses last night.

_I had the nerve-deadening charm. I had the fact that he'd threatened me into sitting there. I had the knowledge that he's a smarmy git to remind myself of. And still he managed to make me feel—good with that kiss. Why?_

_I am not gay. I know I am not gay._

Finally, he had to accept that a kiss like that would have felt good from anyone, woman or man. And perhaps the cake had had some house-elf magic added to it to make his mouth more sensitive still, or hypnotize him. Harry liked that theory. It meant that he would have a more _normal_ kiss, in every respect, if he could just find a woman to kiss.

Unfortunately, the only candidate he knew of in the immediate vicinity was Narcissa, and Harry doubted she'd be open to experimentation.

But, either way, he wasn't gay. It was a combination of deprivation and magic that had landed him on the verge of giving in to Malfoy.

And he only had twenty-nine more days in their bargain. At least, he counted yesterday as the first day of the month. He only had to resist a few hundred more attempts to flirt with him, get his blood up, arouse him, and make him interested.

_It does sound hopeless._

_But it isn't, because I am not gay, _he reminded himself again, and then Trippy appeared in the corner of the room, squeaking that Master Malfoy was awake and would like to know if Master Harry was wanting breakfast?

Harry nodded, and waited until the house-elf was gone before he cast another nerve-deadening charm on himself, making sure to cover his mouth this time, followed by a patience charm. If he could respond with nothing more than a smile or a roll of his eyes to Malfoy's advances, he would have to give up at _some_ point. Harry was fairly sure that an indifferent partner wasn't what he wanted.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Draco narrowed his eyes as he watched Harry clumsily eat his cornflakes, the bland breakfast he'd selected when offered his choice. He was sure Harry had been more graceful yesterday, at least when he wasn't deliberately upsetting his food during dinner. What had changed?

_It's almost as if his lips were numb, but—_

"What are we going to do today, Malfoy?" Harry asked, crunching through some flakes as he looked up. Draco rolled his eyes and gave in to the suspicion that Harry had some genuine bad manners of his own.

"Exercise," he said. "I did promise you that, Harry. On the other hand, the bargain isn't intact if you call me by my last name."

"_Draco_," said Harry, and flicked his tongue out at him. It was probably meant to be an insulting gesture, but Draco felt his heartbeat pick up anyway. He'd had plenty of interesting dreams last night, which almost made up for Harry's absence in his bed.

"Harry," he said, and lowered his voice. He didn't miss the minute hesitation Harry's hand made before he lifted the next spoonful of cornflakes to his lips. _My voice affects him. Well. _Draco smiled slightly as he remembered the two kisses. _Perhaps I should say my mouth does._

"That still doesn't tell me what we're doing," Harry pointed out, and then lipped at his food like a cow lipping at grass. Draco kept his lip from curling as he ate his own eggs, but it was a near thing. _He's eating like his tongue and his lips are under a nerve-deadening charm—_

Draco sat up abruptly. Harry gave him a wary glance, but didn't stop eating, and simply shrugged when Draco said nothing.

_That's it. He's cast the charm on himself. That's the reason none of my touches worked on him last night._

Draco had to figure out what he wanted to do with the information, though. Simply negate the charm, or put one on Harry that would make him more sensitive? And when should he do it? Given their activity for today, it might be dangerous if it was done while they were exercising.

"Flying," Draco said absently, when Harry rolled his eyes at him. "We're flying."

Harry put his spoon down so abruptly that its impact with the side of the bowl echoed. "No," he said. "Absolutely not."

Draco blinked. Of all the things he'd had planned, he'd been sure this was the one Harry would object to least. "And why not?" he asked.

Harry just shook his head. That, of course, only increased Draco's stubbornness, and insistence that they would get up on brooms, and that Harry _would_ enjoy himself.

"You promised to give every lesson I wanted to teach you a chance," he said. "You'll do it, Harry, or I'll demand another month added in to the bargain."

Harry clenched his teeth for a moment, then said curtly, "Fine."

Now that he thought of it, Draco couldn't remember any evidence that Harry had flown since becoming an Auror, even though the Ministry had an amateur Quidditch team that surely would have been happy to acquire such a talented Seeker. "Why _don't_ you fly?" he asked. "I would have thought that was the one exercise you would take the most delight in."

"I'm too heavy to be a good Seeker," Harry said, gaze fixed determinedly on his food now, as if he wasn't going to look at Draco.

"No one said anything about chasing the Snitch. Why don't you just fly?"

"It's too—there's no _time_ for it." Harry clenched his hand into a fist briefly. Draco leaned forward and subjected him to an inquisitive stare. It seemed to take longer for Harry to break than normal, making Draco wonder if he'd also cast a patience charm on himself, but he finally snapped, "I'm afraid that I wouldn't want to stop if I started again, all right? Afraid that I'd be addicted to it. And I couldn't afford to take that much time off from work."

Draco sat slowly back in his chair, shaking his head. "Your problem is rooted even more deeply than I expected," he muttered. "Not only did you ignore pleasure, you actively _denied_ it. And yet you claim that you're not punishing yourself for the deaths of your friends. Of course, Harry, whatever you need to tell yourself."

Harry looked up at him and snarled.

And, for the first time since he'd been at the Manor, his magic came out.

Draco sat very still as the pictures on the walls of his bedroom began to vibrate, and the same thing happened to the legs of his chair. Even though he felt as if it would dump him on his arse at any moment, he couldn't move. His fascination and wonder had paralyzed him where he sat. He'd never known that Harry's accidental magic was this powerful, but then again, Harry hadn't expressed enough strong emotions in the past few years for him to see it.

It only increased his lust the more. Now, Draco knew manifestly that Harry _could_ resist him, could in fact snatch him up and spin him around the room like a rag doll if he wanted to. That meant his submission, when he gave it, would be all the more profound a gift and sacrifice. The thought of taming something this beautiful and powerful made Draco's hands itch for a touch of Harry's skin, and he shuddered, excitement coiling in his belly.

Harry must have mistaken the shudder for a shiver of fear. Abruptly, the magic stopped moving around the room, and he sat back, a sick look on his face. Suddenly he shoved his chair away and made for the door.

Draco followed him, catching him easily around the waist with one arm and capturing his neck with the other. Harry, frozen in an awkward position, had no choice but to stand there, huffing, and remain still even as Draco caressed his face and crooned into his ear.

"You have nothing to apologize for, Harry. It's all right. I promise. I wasn't frightened. And if your magic emerges when your emotions are high, then we'll just work on controlling the magic. You've controlled your feelings long enough. It's all right. You didn't hurt me, didn't frighten me."

Harry pushed at his arms, and Draco released him. Harry had already shaken his head, and the calm mask had fallen back into place over his green eyes.

"Don't worry about it," he said. "It won't happen again."

_Yes, it will, _Draco thought, and added another task to his mental list of them. He gave Harry a small, neutral smile, and said, "I have two Flameflare brooms next to the Manor's Pitch. Go and change into something more suitable for flying, and I'll meet you there. Hoppy," he added in a high voice, and the house-elf popped into view. "Guide Harry, if you would."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Harry scowled at the sky. It was a brilliant day—at least, over the Malfoys' enchanted garden—and the blueness was high and vast, one of those skies that looked as if he could fall into it and never stop falling. The grass of the Quidditch Pitch was extremely short, as if cropped by sheep, and green as hope. And Malfoy was such a ponce as he stood there in his cream-colored robes and raised an eyebrow at Harry, even though he was wearing a set of robes that had come from the wardrobe in his room.

Harry shrugged. The robes were red, like the ones he'd worn when he was on the Gryffindor Quidditch team—and weren't _those_ memories in need of squashing—and perfectly suitable. If Malfoy thought they would show too many grass stains, or some other snobbish worry, then he shouldn't have put them in Harry's reach.

"Here are the Flameflares," Malfoy said, turning around and bending down to retrieve the brooms from the shed behind him. Harry found himself watching the smooth bend of his shoulder and flank, and immediately shook his head.

_I'm not admiring them, because I'm not gay._

Malfoy held out the brooms then, and Harry had to lose himself in admiration. They were to Firebolts what swans were to quail. They had bristles worked with a shimmer of magic that Harry knew instinctively would lend both speed and control, and the wood they were made of, white with swirls of gold, shone as if polished with oil. When Harry took the one Malfoy held out into his hand, he could feel the handle was smooth but not slimy, as the sheen might have suggested. The broom trembled and then adjusted its balance to his weight and height, suddenly lighter in his grip.

"You'll want to go up slowly at first," Malfoy said condescendingly, as he swung a leg over his own broom. "After all, you haven't been on a broom in eleven years, Harry."

Harry gave him a grin, unable to resist doing so. What he had dreaded happening if he came into contact with a broom again was happening to him now; he felt a giddy joy flooding him. But the worry seemed a faint and distant thing now, against the reality of the Flameflare in his hands.

"I hate to shatter your precious pure-blood illusions, Draco," he said, as he mounted his own broom, "but I hadn't been on a broom in eleven years the first time I rode one, either."

He had the chance to laugh at Malfoy's shocked expression before the Flameflare, responding either to the weight of a rider or to Harry's own innate desires and magic, surged upward.

And then Harry was _gone_.

He wrapped his legs around the broom and leaned close to it, sending it spinning around in a dizzy spiral. Sky rolled into ground rolled back into sky, and Harry had the impression of tumbling out of the middle of a shaking rug. He didn't care. His balance and his grip were perfect, he knew that, and he laughed through the whole of the turn.

Upright again, he shot higher, impatiently seeking the wind and the cold he remembered from his days of playing Quidditch. There it was, thin and piercing as it coated his ears with frost, and his lungs heaved in his chest, trying to remember the work of breathing at this height. His body swayed from side to side with the intensity of the flight, but God, it didn't matter, nothing did, this was _perfect._

The Flameflare danced beneath him, sensitive as a horse to the touch of the rein. Harry practically had to imagine something, and the broom did it. He reached the far end of the Pitch and curved back around, hearing the bristles give a sharp sound rather like a whinny as he turned. He laughed aloud, and couldn't stop laughing.

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

Draco followed Harry at a lesser height and speed, shaking his head as he watched Harry zip through daring maneuvers that professional Quidditch players wouldn't have tried. He hadn't stopped laughing since he entered the air, other than brief pauses for breath, and his voice was growing hoarse. He didn't seem to care. He existed in the midst of pure joy, mad bliss.

It awed Draco, and, in a way, humbled him to see Harry like this. This was what he should be like all the time. He shouldn't have to give himself special permission to achieve this happiness, and Draco shouldn't have had to intrude into his life to get him to do it, either. When Harry was finally free from his preoccupation with work and his past, then he would be like this.

Draco found himself content to do nothing more than watch, until it was almost noon and he knew the house-elves would be bringing out a picnic lunch. Then he landed on the grass under a large oak and called, "Harry!"

He had to shout his name seven times before Harry deigned to pay attention. Then he turned his head down, oriented on Draco as if he were a Snitch, and descended in a dive that made Draco's heart catch in his throat. To make it worse, Harry spun himself upside-down during the dive and let his robes brush against the grass before he flipped back over, dug his feet into the dirt, and plowed a long furrow as he landed.

Draco was breathing harshly, and not just with the beauty of the sight. Harry could very easily have broken a leg, the idiot.

Of course, when Harry came jogging towards him grinning like the idiot he was, Draco couldn't bring himself to scold. But he could take his revenge another way, and he did. He murmured a charm that would not merely negate the nerve-deadening charm Harry was wearing, but increase the sensitivity of the skin it had numbed.

"_What_, Malfoy?" Harry halted in front of Draco, if you could call the half-stamping, half-dancing pose he adopted halting. His grin was wide and bright across his face, and the wind had made a ruin of his hair. His green eyes flashed with defiance, just daring Draco to say something about the use of his last name.

Draco reached out and brushed the back of his hand across Harry's cheek.

"It's time for lunch," he said.

Harry tossed back his head and stood there for a moment, trembling. Draco ran his hand back the other way again. He'd used the spell on himself before. It felt like being touched with gauze made of fire. He trailed his fingers down Harry's neck, and Harry stepped closer to him, following the pleasure, his mouth half-open, his eyes shut so tightly that Draco wondered if he was trying to keep tears from falling.

"Lunch," Draco said again, leaning in far enough that his breath scraped Harry's ear, and Harry's hips gave a single thrust.

Then he pulled away, his lips firming, and muttered, "No, it isn't—"

The meal appeared on a cloth under the oak then, banishing Harry's protest. Harry gave him a glare anyway, and sat down on one side of the blanket. Draco grinned and sat on the other, satisfied to let Harry re-cast the nerve-deadening charm on himself. He'd reminded Harry of his existence, and that was all he really wanted at this point.

_Tomorrow, of course, is another case._

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Harry had a very stern talk with himself as he ate the sandwiches that the house-elves had prepared, full of chicken so tender it fell apart if touched and flakes of a sauce Harry didn't recognize but which made his mouth water from the mere smell.

_He cast a spell that increased the sensitivity. That's all he did. No wonder you felt like you'd kill to have him touch you again. It was magical._

_You're not gay. You would much prefer to have a nice, normal wife, and nice, normal children, if you had time for that. You don't like men._

He shot a glance at Malfoy, who'd taken his place across the blanket, and had paused in the middle of his eating to sigh. Harry focused his gaze on the parted lips for a moment, and the tongue that traveled across them, then looked sharply away.

_I'm still not gay. I only have to remember that for twenty-eight more days._

A touch of pure happiness crept into his thoughts as he glanced back out onto the Pitch.

_And after lunch, I get to fly._


	10. The Worst Reason For Covering His Scar

_Chapter 10—The Worst Reason For Covering His Scar Ever_

Harry ate breakfast with one eye on Draco. He was sure that today, the third day of their bargain, was going to contain something of spectacular awfulness. Yesterday after the picnic had been spent flying, with Draco even joining him in an impromptu Quidditch game (which Harry had won, of course). It had been a day that Harry could almost have imagined sharing with a friend.

Save for the moment when they got off their brooms at sunset, and Draco had pulled Harry close and just stood there with him, his back to Harry's chest, one arm curled around him, forcing him to feel the hardness of another man's muscles and the insistent pressure of a male body. He hadn't said anything, nor removed Harry's nerve-deadening charm again. He'd just stood there, and made the moment so intimate that Harry hadn't felt able to interrupt, either.

Harry had reminded himself seventy-five times last evening that he was not gay. And so far this morning had been even more normal, with Draco dividing his attention between him and the _Daily Prophet_ and Harry's self-reminders declining. This meant, so far as Harry was concerned, that the awfulness would begin at any moment.

When it did, he didn't recognize it at first. Draco aimed his wand at him and muttered something under his breath, so casual that only the length of the incantation gave it away as a complicated spell.

Harry cried out as his vision blurred. He heard Draco snort. "Honestly, Harry. You still think I'm going to hurt you in any way that's not entirely consensual?" he said.

"I find it strange that you think I would enjoy pain," said Harry, and removed his glasses, since he assumed Draco had cast a fogging charm on them. "Even if I did, I would be exploring it with a _woman_, not—"

And then he stopped, when he realized that he could see perfectly well without the glasses. In fact, he could see better than he ever had in his life. His vision _sparkled_, and the air around him was as bright and clear as if it had never been disturbed. He stared, taking in details from the color of the far wall to the inlay on the table.

Draco snared his attention by leaning forward and capturing his chin between thumb and forefinger. Harry stared at him, and let himself be stared at. He had never realized there was that much to see in a human face.

"Beautiful," Draco said softly. "You should have corrected your vision a long time ago, Harry. Your eyes _shine_ without those glasses." His thumb slowly moved over Harry's cheek, as if he would urge his lips into a smile.

Harry pulled away, blushing and wincing both at once. "Stop saying things like that, Malfoy."

"Why?" Draco said, and his voice still had that same softness. Harry was sure that the awful part of the day was in full motion now. "Does it embarrass you to hear that you're beautiful, Harry? Just because no one's noticed it the past few years doesn't mean you're ugly. You were working very hard to keep them from noticing." He reached out and managed to stroke Harry's hair before he moved far enough away to make that impossible, too. "Or do you not like hearing it because compliments are part of that life you tried so hard to leave behind, the life where you lived like a normal person?"

"This—this isn't normal," Harry argued. "To suddenly have your vision corrected and then be paid compliments by your schoolboy rival."

"We're not schoolboys now, Harry."

_Damn it, how does he keep turning ridiculously safe comments into innuendo? _Harry gave a shudder and shook his head. _It's probably my problem. His voice just affects me too much. But I am not gay. I know that._

"Why correct my vision now?" he demanded. "Why not the moment you captured me?"

"I would have liked to," Draco said, "but it wasn't urgent." He pointed his wand again, and Harry went for his own, but he wasn't fast enough to counter Draco's spell, which caused an odd tingling coolness in the middle of his forehead. "There," Draco pronounced. "And now your scar is covered, too. Your scar and glasses were practically iconic, Harry, you know. I don't think most people know what you look like without them, especially after eleven years. You can meet Theresa and she won't have any idea who you are."

"I thought you said all your friends I'd meet _did_ know who I was," Harry said, backing up and keeping his wand in between them.

"Oh, Theresa isn't a friend, as such," said Draco, giving him a faint smile. "She's a Healer with St. Mungo's, who's done some private work for the Malfoy family in the past."

Harry frowned. "I really don't think anything is wrong with me, Malfoy, given the way I flew yesterday—"

"_Draco_, Harry. And no, I didn't suggest anything was wrong with you physically." Draco cocked his head as if waiting for Harry to make an obvious connection, but Harry just stared at him, befuddled. Draco sighed. "Theresa is a therapist, Harry. Specifically, she has experience with survivor's guilt and emotional repression, depression—"

"_No_," Harry snarled. He didn't care if his magic did rattle the door in its frame. He was not sitting down to some session with an interfering Healer. He'd mostly fooled them after he killed Voldemort, making them think he didn't need any help, and still there had been a few persistent ones who had asked him again and again if he wanted to talk, until he perfected his act. Someone coming in forewarned about that—"_No_," he said again.

Draco shrugged. "Then I'll keep you here indefinitely, Harry. Since you're breaking your side of the bargain already, calling me by my last name, and I want you very badly, it'll be no trouble to have you in Malfoy Manor until you can't imagine leaving."

Harry felt a spark of panic. Even worse than the thought of facing a Healer was the thought of losing the battle with Malfoy, and just giving in to the "lessons" he proposed, as if they were normal.

"You said that you would give this a chance," Draco said quietly. "All she knows is that your name is Harry, and that you lost your whole family in a Death Eater raid eleven years ago and have repressed it since. That's all."

"I didn't repress it," Harry said, glaring at Draco through his fringe. "I was living."

Draco didn't bother justifying that with an answer, simply arched an eyebrow.

Harry closed his eyes. "Won't she drag the truth out of me?" he asked, in what he knew was a last attempt to protest this.

"Even if she does," said Draco, "the room you're going to meet her in is bespelled. She won't be able to talk to anyone outside the Manor walls about what happens here." He must have come closer while Harry was brooding, because suddenly his hand was on Harry's shoulder, and then he slid down beside him and gathered him in a loose embrace. "Please," he whispered, his breath warm on Harry's ear. "I'm only doing this because I didn't think you would talk to me about them. Otherwise, I would have kept it private. I _want_ it private as much as you do, Harry. I want to be the one you tell your pain to and relax around. But I can't do that, and I have to help you. So please talk to her."

Harry took several deep, steadying breaths. The presence of a warm body at his back helped, especially when he made himself think of it as a body and not Draco. And he had to remember that no one could _make_ him be cooperative. Be prickly and surly with the therapist, make her run away screaming the way he'd essentially done with Narcissa Malfoy, and Draco couldn't even blame him.

"All right," he said.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Harry met Theresa in a far-too-pale room in the center of Malfoy Manor, or so Harry assumed from the number of halls and chambers they crossed through to get there. Harry glared at the cool blue walls. He would have preferred red or gold.

Then he realized that those would have roused memories of Gryffindor Tower, and dragged the people associated with that place to the surface of his mind, and he was just as grateful for the bland room.

It had a large enchanted window off to the side that looked onto an impossible view of the Malfoy gardens, and through which Harry knew Draco would be watching; from the other side, it actually opened into this room. The only furniture was a pair of white chairs, set in the center and looking extraordinarily comfortable. Harry prowled back and forth behind one, unwilling to sit down until the Healer entered.

She came in through the far door, giving him a nod as though they'd met before, which of course they hadn't. Harry bristled, then told himself that his task here was to be charming and absolutely maddening at the same time. He forced out a bright, chirpy smile, and said, "Theresa?"

"Yes." She smiled at him. She was probably a generation older than he was, showing her age more than Mrs. Malfoy, and her brown hair was curly and worn to her shoulders. She had pale, pleasant blue eyes that Harry wouldn't have looked at twice if he'd met her in Diagon Alley, never guessing that behind them hid the cunning mind of an enemy. Her robes were pale, but shapeless, without the St. Mungo's emblem. Harry wanted to kick himself for feeling grateful for that.

"Harry." He crossed the room to take her hand, drawing on lessons he'd learned when he couldn't tell a witness he was an Auror. _Project an air of confidence. Show that you're comfortable here and expect them to feel the same way. Maintain eye contact gently, naturally._

Theresa shook his hand, and then nodded to the chairs. "Should we sit down, Harry, and begin?"

Harry shrugged carelessly, and crossed over to the chair he'd been walking behind before. "If you wish, Theresa. I'm afraid you've been summoned for nothing, however. I don't carry survivor's guilt. I'm sorry to waste your time." He collapsed into his chair as if boneless and arched an eyebrow at her.

"Oh, dear," said Theresa, and arranged her robes comfortably. "Well, in that case I would enjoy a spot of tea and conversation before I go back to St. Mungo's, Harry. Would you care to provide the tea? I assume that you'd know the Malfoy Manor house-elves better than I do, since you are a guest here."

Harry barely kept himself from staring. She probably expected him to fall into the casual game and trust her because of her acting. Well, he wouldn't.

"Of course," he said, and cleared his throat. "Trippy!"

The house-elf appeared with a tray of scones and two cups of tea before he finished speaking her name. Harry blinked and accepted his own cup, eyeing Theresa over the lip of it as he sipped.

"Mr. Malfoy rarely makes a mistake quite _this_ big," the Healer said, when she'd eaten part of a scone and closed her eyes in satisfaction over the tea several times. "Could you tell me what made him think you had survivor's guilt?"

With an effort, Harry kept his muscles from tensing, and rolled his eyes. "My family did die in a Death Eater raid. That much is true. And Draco just doesn't think I'm mourning them in the right way."

Theresa's face softened. "Well, I have been prey to the unrealistic expectations of friends myself," she said. "How often do you visit their graves, Harry?"

_Well, now you have to lie. You can do that, though. Of course you can. _Harry ignored the uneasy feeling in the center of his chest, that he was disgracing the Weasleys, Hermione, Remus, and Fleur by doing so, and shrugged. "Every month. He thinks I should go every week or so."

"And you've formed new friendships, of course? New interests?" Theresa gave him a teasing smile. "A girlfriend, perhaps? I know that a lot of the young people were in a hurry to settle down and have children after the war, but you look like someone who likes his freedom."

"I do," said Harry, relieved that the conversation was turning in this direction. "I'm not in a hurry to rush into a family. I mostly enjoy helping others." _There. I can tell her part of the truth and still make her think I'm perfectly recovered. _"I'm an Auror, actually, and the best part of the job is being able to tell people that they're safe now, or that at least the murderer of their loved one has been brought to justice."

Theresa nodded. "I'm sure that your parents would be proud of you, Harry."

Harry had to look away. "I like to think so," he said earnestly. "They—they knew the meaning of sacrifice." With an effort, he kept his hand from rising to rub his forehead.

"And is being an Auror a sacrifice, then, Harry?" Theresa murmured.

Harry snapped his head up, his eyes narrowing. _How did I let myself forget she was an enemy? Pleasant words and an interest in me don't mean she actually cares. She's here to root out my secrets, a ferret set on me by a ferret, and I'm here to keep that from happening. I don't need therapy. I just have to prove that._

"Of course not," he said. "But my parents died during the war." _Not a lie, technically._ "They knew their lives were in danger." _Not a lie, either. _"They knew the meaning of sacrifice."

"I'm still not sure how," Theresa murmured, her brow furrowing. "Were they Aurors, too, Harry?"

Harry relaxed. "Yes. Or, at least, my father was," he had to add. He still didn't know that much about his mother.

"What did your mother do?"

Harry winced. _Died protecting me, and insured I survived the Killing Curse, and really earned all the praise that people give me. _"Well, she was an Auror's wife, of course. That meant she knew he might not come back someday. But she loved him anyway, and me. I think she would have been proud of me, if that's what you're leading back to."

"Your siblings?"

"I had seven," Harry whispered. Technically, counting Hermione, whom he had loved like a sister, Ron, and his brothers, and not Ginny—his love for her had been different—that was true. But he could tell by the shocked look on Theresa's face that he might have done better to lie about the number.

_I don't want to lie about them, though. That's the thing. _It felt too hot in the room. But that probably came from drinking too much tea, Harry told himself. He set his cup firmly aside.

"Harry," Theresa said, when she'd recovered her voice. "That is a major loss. I can see why Mr. Malfoy thinks that you have survivor's guilt. That is too many different relationships to lose all at once without damage." Her voice was soft with compassion.

Harry stirred restlessly. "I didn't—I mean, some of them were older than I was. I didn't know them all as well as I would have liked."

"But they were your _siblings._"

Harry looked away. "I did lie," he said tightly. "I was an only child."

"Then why lie and tell me you had seven siblings?" Theresa sounded honestly bewildered now. "That's a very specific number." She paused. "Were they friends you considered family instead? Did you lose that many, along with your parents, in a raid? I can see why Mr. Malfoy is worried, Harry. That's a large portion of your world to have destroyed all at once, and he did tell me that you'd never been a patient at St. Mungo's for therapy before. Did _anyone_ talk to you about this?"

Harry closed his eyes and gave in to the old impulse, bringing his hand to his scar. "I'm not—I don't want to do this, Theresa," he said.

She sighed. "I could tell you were lying to me, Harry," she said. "We're taught to watch for that. The way your eyes continually went off to the right and up indicated that you had to make up a story, and it wasn't one that sounded practiced, either. I am tempted to think that Mr. Malfoy's suspicions were correct, unless you can convince me otherwise."

"What does it _matter_?" Harry was afraid that his plans were falling in ruins around him, but suddenly nothing was so important as the Healer's answer to this question. He flared his eyes open and dropped his hand from his forehead so that he could look at her directly. "You don't—it was _eleven years ago_. I've survived it and gone on. It doesn't matter to anyone but me."

"You're wrong, Harry," said Theresa. "It matters to me. And it matters to Mr. Malfoy. I know that much."

Harry clenched his hands. "I don't want to talk about it," he said. "I don't ever want to talk about it."

But if he didn't, then Draco practically had license to keep him here indefinitely. That would keep him away from his job and the one thing that made his life worthwhile.

But he couldn't say anything about it. It was buried. He was the only one alive now who'd known all of them. Hermione's parents had grieved, but they had done their grieving in private and far from him, since, after all, he was the one who'd been the cause of it. Fleur's parents must have grieved, though Harry had never known them. And they had surely lived their own lives since, the way Harry had done.

It wasn't—

He couldn't tear this open.

And he couldn't let Draco keep him here, either.

"Harry?" Theresa's hand was on his arm.

Harry moved quickly, falling into instincts he'd learned during Auror training, and, before that, practiced and honed in the war. In a moment, he had his wand in hand, and he'd cast a Body-Bind on Theresa. Then he wheeled towards the window beyond which Draco was watching, closed his eyes, and cast the spell in that direction, too, imagining it holding him still with all the force of his will. If his mouth was held shut, Draco couldn't call the house-elves.

Harry ran for the door Theresa had come in by and yanked it open, then held his wand out on his palm. "_Point Me_ Auror Wormwood," he snapped. He could be _sure_ his partner wasn't in Malfoy Manor, and that meant he should be able to find his way out of this maze by locating him.

The wand spun twice, then pointed to the left down the hall. Harry turned grimly in that direction.

He _was_ going to escape. Draco couldn't force him into this twisted parody of a prison if Harry didn't let him. He should never have let it get this far in the first place.

He was going to escape.


	11. The Forfeit

_Chapter 11—The Forfeit_

Draco felt the Body-Bind settling around him, but, thanks to seeing Harry use the spell on Theresa, he had a moment's warning. He was able to call out, just before the hex sealed his mouth shut, "Trippy!"

She appeared next to him, and looked at him expectantly. Draco gave her a pitiful look, and at once she gasped and wriggled her fingers to dissolve the binding. "Master Harry was being bad?" she whispered, as if reluctant to even hint at such a disastrous occurrence.

"He was," Draco said shortly, and then stood, working out where Harry could be headed from the map of the Manor in his head. He had a short route to the outer wards from this side of the house, unfortunately. _Damn_. And if Harry was desperate enough, he might be able to work through the wards before Draco could arrive. Raw strength was normally not something Draco would back against finesse, but then, most brands of raw strength weren't Harry's kind. _Damn again._

In the end, although he badly wanted to be the one to capture Harry himself, there was only one practical option.

"Catch Harry, Trippy," he directed. "Hold him, but don't hurt him, and then send Hoppy to tell me where he is while you remain with him." He wasn't going to take the chance that Harry would manage to break free of house-elf magic, too. And besides, he needed to enter the room next door and make sure to free Theresa from the Body-Bind, and it would probably look more dignified to stroll up later, after Harry was properly captured.

Trippy's chest seemed to swell, the way it always did when she was given authority to order one of the other house-elves around. "Right away, Master Malfoy, sir!" she squeaked, and vanished.

Draco shook his head and headed for the far side of the enchanted window.

_Harry. Stupid, stubborn, infuriating Harry._

He had been sure that Theresa was about to force Harry to acknowledge that the way he'd been living all these years was inappropriate, and that he would have to change. Instead, Harry had snapped and run in a way Draco had not seriously imagined would happen. He was a Gryffindor, wasn't he? And he'd been so controlled for years.

Draco was starting to think that Harry had only been able to maintain that façade because no one ever challenged him on the matter. The moment someone did start caring, did start challenging him, it collapsed, because Harry's emotions weren't so controlled after all, and his denial wasn't far from the surface.

He released the Body-Bind the moment he stepped through the door, and watched as the Healer shook her head and smoothed down her hair. "I'm sorry for that," he said quietly. "Harry's a more difficult patient than I anticipated."

"I _should_ have seen something like that coming," Theresa said, and straightened, and fixed him with such an evil eye that Draco blinked. "But there's something else that you can apologize for. Lying to me. I need to know the _full_ facts of Harry's case to treat him properly, and he won't give them to me. He's Harry Potter, isn't he? And all his friends died at once?"

Draco winced, but nodded. _If it would help Harry, I have to tell her the truth. _Besides, the spell he had on the room would insure that Theresa still couldn't tell the story elsewhere. "Yes. The Weasleys, who'd practically adopted him like a son, were wiped out by the Dark Lord, and so was his best friend, Hermione Granger, and Remus Lupin, who'd been a friend of his father's."

Theresa closed her eyes and sighed. "And he's been living like that since?"

"Yes. He's never visited his friends' graves, either, and he's made no new friends, and he deprives himself of the simple pleasures of life, apparently as a way to ignore everything but work."

Theresa muttered something under her breath. In the end, she said, "If he consents to speak more with me, I do insist that he be without a wand, and I may suggest a Calming Draught, too." She shook her head. "I thought it would take more effort than that to crack him. How did he survive?"

"That's what I would like to know," Draco said grimly. "And I have to admit that I don't know if he'll talk to you after this, Theresa."

She nodded. "I will remain here, just in case—"

Hoppy appeared in the room with an abrupt bang. "Master Harry is being captured by Trippy, Master Malfoy," he said gravely.

Draco nodded and followed Hoppy out of the room. _Harry and I are going to have a little talk._

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Harry snarled and strained his muscles against the invisible cords that Trippy had used to bind him again. He'd been so _close_. He could see a door in front of him with a window set in the upper half that framed blue sky. He'd been a pace from it when the house-elf appeared, announced, "Master Harry is _very bad!_" and left him to hang in midair like this.

She'd also taken his wand, _damn it._

Harry closed his eyes and forced his muscles to relax. He hadn't been able to break free of spells more than a few times, but he'd sometimes been able to Summon his wand, as long as he knew where it was. It was caught now in three of Trippy's overlong fingers, and her gaze was vigilant on him, not it.

_Come here! Accio wand!_

Trippy squeaked suddenly, and then said, "Master Harry is so bad that he will have a nap for four hours!" When Harry looked again, she had such a firm grip on his wand that he knew he couldn't get it away from her with a simple Summoning Charm. He growled his frustration.

"Harry."

If his muscles hadn't already been tensed to the limit, Harry would have snapped taut at Malfoy's voice. As it was, he merely switched his glare in that direction, and watched as his "host" walked calmly across the patterned floor to him.

He came close enough to reach up and put a hand on Harry's cheek. Harry just watched him, panting a little, eyes half-lidded. _Come closer, you bastard. Then maybe I can break your nose with my forehead._

"That didn't go the way I was planning, Harry," said Malfoy calmly.

"Go fuck yourself, Malfoy." Harry jerked his face away then. He couldn't stand the thumb that rubbed over his skin as if it owned him. Besides, he'd already broken the terms of their bargain. That meant he could be as insulting as he liked, and call Draco by his last name as often as he wanted.

Malfoy's eyes narrowed a little, but he maintained his temper. "You were rude," he said. "Even if you were irritated with me, there was no need to act as you did in front of Theresa."

"I don't care what you think." Harry flexed his muscles against the bonds again, hoping Trippy would have become distracted with her master's presence and that would introduce a weakness into the spell. It didn't work. "This bargain is off, anyway. I already broke it. What you want from me is _insane_, and you're holding me here against my will."

"You need help, Harry." Malfoy took another step closer, though not, unfortunately, close enough for a head-butt. "Theresa thinks so, and so do I. You can't be allowed to go on living as you have."

"What do you care?" Once again, Harry found himself slammed against the invisible wall that was Malfoy's stupid _caring._ "I wasn't hurting anyone. I was _helping_ people, in fact. I—"

"You were hurting _yourself_." Malfoy's face was implacable. "That matters to me, Harry, and it matters to Theresa, too. I wish it mattered more to you than it does. If you can't be bothered to take care of yourself, though, I'll take care of you. And if we can't bargain as adults, then I'll treat you like a child. You'll spend your time here under so many muscle relaxation spells that you'll need help to use the loo, and sleeping when I tell you to, and talking with Theresa under Veritaserum. I don't _want_ that, Harry. I really don't. But I would rather do that and have you hate me, and keep it up for however many years it takes until you _understand_, than let you go out that door."

Harry closed his eyes in defeat. And wonderful, now he felt the pressure of something like _tears_, because his damn emotions were still too close to the surface. "I don't—Malfoy, don't—"

"Don't what, Harry?"

"Just give up," Harry whispered. "Just leave me to live, and die, if you think I'm doing that, in my own way."

He was terrified, because he knew that if Draco intended to pursue this course, sooner or later he would change. It was inevitable. He'd broken down after a few questions; how could he resist month after month, year after year, of this kind of treatment? He would talk, or mourn, or whatever they really wanted from him, and that would make him _not Harry._ He didn't _want_ to change. He'd been doing _fine_ on his own. He could do things that no one else could.

"That's not an option, in any of the courses I'm considering right now." Draco's voice was soft, incredibly. He moved closer, and a moment later Harry felt his hand on his cheek again, tilting his head back. "My God," Draco whispered. "This honestly terrifies you, doesn't it?"

Hoping against hope that the evidence of his fear would persuade Draco to let him go, Harry nodded.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Draco stroked the side of Harry's cheek, first with his thumb and then the back of his hand. He couldn't seem to stop touching him. He didn't want to. Those protective instincts that had first surged up when he made Harry come with his voice alone were raging through him again like a river in flood.

"Harry," he whispered. "_Harry._ If you need to be more in control than this, there's still a way to do that."

Harry opened his eyes and looked at him. There was a faint shine to their marvelous green that hadn't been there before. Draco felt his heart melt a little more. He couldn't soften so much he would do things that were bad for Harry just because Harry wanted them, but what he had become obsessed with was that fire, the stubborn will that had carried Harry through grief that would have killed most other people long since. He couldn't actually force him to become a helpless, dependent pet, for the same reasons he couldn't rape him. It was _wrong_.

"We can resume our bargain," Draco said. "The same terms as before. You leave at the end of a month, and you don't use hexes on me or anyone else here without permission. You call me by my first name and you face the lessons I ask you to face. That includes sessions with Theresa."

Hope returned to Harry's face, slowly and painfully. He swallowed back some initial responses, then said, "But?"

Draco tilted his head. "But?"

"There's going to be a condition somewhere," Harry said. "I can see that in your face."

Draco smiled, charmed by the fact that Harry had learned to read him enough in the last few days to know what some of his facial expressions looked like. Harry, of course, would say that he needed to know his captor so he could escape his prison. But Draco knew such close attention was one of the preludes to falling in love, too. The very fact that Harry responded so strongly to him, instead of sitting in an emotionally isolated shell, was an indication of how badly he'd needed someone to talk and relate to.

"You owe me a forfeit," said Draco. "I choose what it is. It happens when I say so. And you do it without objecting. If I want you to take Veritaserum before one session with Theresa, for example, you'll do that. If I want you to give me a massage, you will. Do you understand, Harry?"

Harry weighed it, his expression wary. But, in the end, he wanted the control this would continue to give him more than he cared about what the forfeit might be, Draco knew. He nodded, and then grimaced as his chin apparently slammed into one of the invisible bonds that Trippy had woven about him. "Can you get me out of this?"

"A moment," Draco whispered, and took a step forward to kiss Harry again. He had to stand on his toes, as Harry was hovering slightly above him, but he wanted this badly enough not to care.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Harry shut his eyes as Draco kissed him. He didn't think he wanted to look into his eyes that close, not right now.

Just as before, the slide and slip of Draco's tongue in his mouth made him feel better than could have been reasonably expected if he was really straight, and Harry found himself responding before he'd made a conscious decision about what to do. Draco was nibbling at his lips this time, cupping his chin with one hand, running the other up into his hair.

Harry took a deep breath and decided to do what he could to show Draco his gratitude. He _still_ didn't want to talk to the Healer, but Draco hadn't had to make the bargain over with him again, either. This was so much better than what could have happened. This left him a chance to resist.

He relaxed into the kiss, even leaned into it. He was still going to win their contest, he told himself firmly. That didn't matter. He could give Draco this small reward, though.

Draco groaned loudly, and rewarded him in turn by digging his fingers into his scalp. Harry's body twitched with interest.

It felt good. He could admit that, couldn't he, and not be concerned about what it meant for his sexuality? He could admit that.

Draco pulled back, at last, and looked torn between saying something and continuing the kiss right there. Finally, he shook his head and said, "Trippy, let him down."

"But is Master Harry still a bad boy?" the house-elf asked with an anxious expression, even as she obeyed.

Draco considered Harry. Harry flushed a bit, aware of how he must look, with his hair mussed and his lips slightly swollen. But he lifted his head and returned the gaze as best he could. He _did_ intend to do better this time around.

Draco smiled, though, so whatever he saw must have been pleasing.

"He's better now," he murmured to Trippy, not looking away from Harry.


	12. The Terrible, No Good, Awful Fourth Day

Because I have this one ready, I'm going ahead and uploading it now. Enjoy!

_Chapter 12—The Terrible, No-Good, Awful Fourth Day_

Harry spent a few minutes standing in front of the door to the room where Theresa waited, opening and closing his hand. He didn't want to go into that room. He _really_ didn't want to go into that room.

But he knew what his choices were if he didn't. Trying to break free and go back to his old life, at which he would eventually falter, thanks to the numbers Draco had gathered about him slipping up on his hours of sleeping and eating. Staying here under compulsion rather than freely, without a right to refuse what he didn't like and the chance to fight back subtly. Or, perhaps, following up the offer that Theresa had given him yesterday, when he'd apologized to her and said he wanted to delay a more extensive conversation until today: that he come to St. Mungo's with her and endure the attentions of a few other Healers.

But he couldn't do that.

He even knew why. He just didn't know if he had the courage to say it to Theresa.

At last, he told himself that she wouldn't go away, and neither would Draco, standing behind the enchanted window next to the meeting room. Besides, he wasn't afraid. He couldn't be afraid to confront anything, and that had to include his own emotions, or how was he going to make a good Auror?

He opened the door and stepped in.

Theresa smiled at him from the furthest of the chairs. She already had a cup of tea, and was sipping it carefully, as if she feared it would singe her lips otherwise. She didn't refer to the conversation yesterday, but said, "Please come in and make yourself comfortable, Harry. Where would you like to start?"

Harry took his own chair, wishing he had his wand with him all the while. But it was true that, while accidental magic might cause more harm than spells in the long run, it was more likely to rattle around in a directionless manner first, and would give Theresa or Draco more time to get out of the way. So it made sense that he should talk to the Healer without his wand.

He still didn't like it. His body was convinced that this was a dangerous situation, and he should take every step possible to get away.

"I suppose that you should—that you should know—" Harry shook his head as his voice fell nerveless. He _had_ to say this, or he wouldn't make any sense to Theresa. And he did accept that she wanted to help him, no matter what Draco's motives might be. If she'd only come here as a favor to the Malfoy family, she would have given up after yesterday, apology or no apology.

Theresa raised her eyebrows. "Yes?"

"I won't go to St. Mungo's." There, he'd said it.

She blinked. "Why not?"

And then here it came. Harry made himself look his fear in the face, the way that he had Dashwood even as he knew that this man was responsible for the murders of three small children. What lurked in his own heart was not as evil as a Dark wizard, and if he could face them, he could face this.

"Here, I still have some sense of control," he said quietly. "I have a chance of winning, of retaining the person I was and still want to be. At St. Mungo's, I don't have as much of a chance of that."

Theresa frowned and set the cup of tea aside, leaning forward to speak earnestly. "I assure you, Harry, the people there would have your best interests at heart. And though Mr. Malfoy is a family friend, I am not convinced he does."

_She's bold, to speak like that when she knows he's watching. Or maybe just a Healer. _Some of the ones who'd tried to tend him after he killed Voldemort, before he frightened them off, were like that. "I know," Harry said, shaking the memories away. "And that's the problem. With St. Mungo's, I mean."

Her frown deepened.

"I would feel I couldn't fight back against them," Harry explained, "since they really _would_ be doing what they could to help me. Draco's own feelings towards me are all mixed up with what _he_ wants." He knew Draco was probably stiffening indignantly at that, but he didn't care. It was true, after all. "So I don't feel bad when he says something stupid and I want to snap back, or when he makes an assumption about me and I want to correct it. I still have an amount of freedom. I control how much I change. I do better when I'm fighting _something_, Theresa, whether it's Dark wizards or him. And at the hospital, there wouldn't be enough people to fight. I could do some damage, but then I'd feel so guilty that I'd agree with whatever they proposed."

Theresa cleared her throat. "I am not convinced that fighting the whole world the way you wish to do is healthy, either, Harry."

"_That_ part, I'm not willing to change," said Harry adamantly. "I'll do what I said: talk to you and try to go along with what Draco suggests when that's genuinely what I want. Otherwise, forget it."

"Do you agree, then, that talking about the death of your friends is healthy? Or genuinely what you want, now?" Theresa was watching him closely.

Harry fidgeted, looking several different directions before he turned back to her. Then he drew in a deep breath and said, "Yes and no. I don't want it, but—what I did and said yesterday frightened me. I should be able to deal with the grief better than that. I _had_ thought I was dealing with it better than that. You've showed me that—maybe—I was ignoring things I shouldn't have ignored."

It was as gracious as he could be. He was still sure that everything would have been better if Draco and Theresa and _everyone_ had left him alone. Better for him, anyway.

But then what might have happened the day that he was just a little too tired or slow to catch a Dark wizard, and an innocent person got hurt, or his partner did? The damage would miss him, of course, because fatal damage always did. He lived on and on and on. That might be the thing he most hated about himself.

So he would do this. But he was determined that he was doing it for his own reasons, and if he changed his mind about those reasons, it would be on _his_ recognizance, and no one else's. Draco's chattering about this and that, his constant encroachments on Harry's personal space, were better for reminding Harry what was at stake than the calmness and empty spaces of St. Mungo's would be. There, he might change his mind about things before he was ready.

"Very well, Harry. It's a start." He ignored the disappointed tone in Theresa's voice. "Now, what would you like to talk about concerning your friends?"

* * *

Draco scowled at the enchanted window. Both Harry and Theresa seemed to have less than complimentary opinions of him. Well, Theresa perhaps didn't think as much of his methods as she had when he brought back Harry looking snogged yesterday. And Harry…

_Unravel one layer of resistance, and there's only another one underneath it. _

He could have worked himself up to a fine head of indignation by thinking that, damn it, he'd done his best and Harry still hated him for it even as he succumbed, but then he heard the rest of what Harry said.

And an emotion he didn't recognize at first rose in the center of his chest. Draco leaned back on the couch with his eyes half-closed, and tried to identify it, even as Harry started talking to Theresa.

It was delight.

He encouraged Harry to fight, didn't he? And that fighting part of Harry was the one that had captured him, not the calm passivity that Harry had buried his passion beneath.

If Harry wanted to stay with him because of that, then Draco won on two counts. First, Harry was staying. Second, he was amenable to expressing just the sorts of emotions that Draco wanted to see from him.

Draco folded his arms behind his head and congratulated himself on arranging the universe in the precise ways that would benefit him, even as he didn't know he was doing it.

* * *

Harry watched Theresa suspiciously. At her prompting, he'd talked about his friendship with Ron and Hermione in Hogwarts, his brief relationship with Ginny, how Remus taught him the Patronus Charm, and the way that he'd always felt welcomed and at home in the bosom of the Weasley family. She'd tried to ask about the Dursleys, but Harry had cut her off on _that_ subject quickly enough. He hadn't seen them since the day he turned seventeen. He'd tried to say goodbye, figuring that Dumbledore would have wanted that, and had received only stares, as if he were a dog that had suddenly started talking. Harry had shaken his head and gone his way. The possibility of a reconciliation in that direction was as nonexistent as it had ever been.

And now Theresa had arrived at the question he dreaded most.

"What happened, that day they died?" she asked quietly.

Harry took a deep breath and shut his eyes. It was better if he spoke of this with them closed; that way, his memories were clearer, and he could be sure he wasn't leaving out a detail. Besides, it would keep back tears if any threatened to rise.

"We were at the Weasleys' house, the Burrow, for a celebration," he began quietly. "Bill, Ron's older brother, had just got married to his fiancée, Fleur Delacour, and I'd spent a few days with them after my birthday. Ron and Hermione and I were about to leave on the quest that would destroy Voldemort." Even so many years later, Harry wasn't sure it was a good idea to mention the Horcruxes to anyone.

"I went outside. It was an August evening, and it—it was just one of those beautiful days, you know, when the light is low and the gold seems like it's never going to end. I stood looking from the edge of the Weasleys' garden towards the fields. I was thinking of how happy I'd been with the Weasleys, and how much it would hurt to leave them all behind. I didn't want to, but we had to. There was no way that Molly and Arthur—Ron's parents—would have let us go if they knew what we were going to do.

"I heard this whistling sound behind me—"

Harry stopped. He had never told anyone else about this before. He'd lied when the reporters asked him how the Weasley house was destroyed, claiming that Voldemort had appeared with fifty Death Eaters and cast Killing Curses through the windows, then collapsed the Burrow inward, which caused so much damage to the bodies that no one could tell Harry was lying about the Killing Curses. He couldn't bear to talk about it. The reporters swarming him with eager questions and bright eyes and flashing cameras didn't deserve to know the truth. The best and most guarded tomb his friends could have was in his memory.

"Harry?"

_You can do this. _It wasn't as though he'd never thought about it again. He had, and for the first few years after it happened, he'd lived through it again in his nightmares.

"I can do this," he said, and if his voice was roughened with tears, so what? He went on quickly enough not to give Theresa a chance to comment on it. "I turned around, and I saw a piece of flaming stone heading straight for the Burrow. It was already there before I made it back up through the garden. It drove the house straight down, and there was an enormous flash of white light. I heard screams."

He sought desperately to drop into the flat, emotionless voice that he used when giving Auror reports, even about the most horrible atrocities that a Dark wizard could commit. This had only been another one of them, hadn't it? The atrocity that had set him on the path of hunting Dark wizards in the first place.

"When I could see again, the Burrow was this—this pancake of melted earth and stone. I came as near as I could, but the heat drove me back. It was burning, everything was afire, and I knew nothing could have got out alive, but I still wanted to go near, still wanted to see.

"And then the smoke from the house coiled green, and turned first into the Dark Mark, and then Voldemort's face. He—he was laughing at me. He said that now that I didn't have any friends left, any protectors, I might as well come and face him on my own, in a final duel to the death."

There had been more than that, and worse, but Harry would never share those words. They were branded into his brain. They haunted him still. That didn't mean anyone else had to know them.

"And why did he do that?" Theresa's voice was soft. Harry had the feeling that she might have asked the question more than once, but he had been lost, drifting somewhere in a trance. He shook his head, but couldn't yet bring himself to open his eyes. He knew the tears would fall.

"He was trying to bait me, make me rush off and confront him and die. Or he wanted to make me despair and give up. I didn't do that. I went off and completed the quest I needed to complete to kill him, and he died."

Harry bowed his head and buried his face in his arms. Talking about it hadn't made him feel better; so much for that sort of wisdom. It made him feel as if someone had forced broken glass down his throat instead, and his consciousness spun slowly, held on one thread over a darkening abyss.

"Can you talk about anything else today, Harry?" Theresa's voice had softened even more, to a hooting that reminded Harry of Hedwig. She'd been—lost, somewhere. He never knew for certain if she died in the Burrow, or thought _he_ was dead there and flew off.

"No," he said. His voice was creaky, and raspy, and cracked in the middle. He stood and shook his head firmly, his eyes still closed. "I want to go back to my room, and I just want to not think for a while," he said. "Trippy?"

She appeared at once, he could tell from the crack, but he didn't open his eyes to see her. "Yes, Master Harry? Master Harry is wanting something?"

"Can you take me back to my room, and fetch me a Dreamless Sleep Potion?" Harry asked.

"Trippy is helping Master Harry!"

Harry had to look once, so that he could see her and follow her out of the room. His eyes were far too hazy, and brimmed with tears. He closed them again as soon as he could.

* * *

Draco slowly entered the meeting room when Harry had left it. His earlier delight had drained away, replaced by intense horror.

God, to have lived through that, to have carried it on his shoulders for eleven years, and to never have _told_ anyone…

Draco had known the Weasleys died violently. He had never known precisely how, and the taunting message from Voldemort had never been a part of the stories he collected. He doubted anyone but Harry had heard it.

He wanted to wrap Harry in a blanket and keep him protected against all the woes of the world. He wanted, after all, to take Harry to St. Mungo's. Harry had said it would be too quiet and calm for him, but God, wasn't that what he needed now, to deal with and acknowledge what he'd just told Theresa?

He shook his head. _He's said what he wanted, what he needs. At the least, I think we have to respect that._

"What do you think?" he asked, leaning against the door so he could look at Theresa.

"Worse than I expected." Theresa sighed. "He not only had to witness their deaths—which I hadn't thought was the case before—but he has to live with the knowledge that they were targeted because they were his friends and killed to make him react in a certain way. It's the only explanation as to why You-Know-Who didn't hit the Burrow while he was still in it. I think he is blaming himself for that. Perhaps he doesn't exactly think of them as dying because of him, but he'll be close to it."

Draco nodded.

"And we still have years of denial to get through, including this resistance to change." Theresa gave another sigh, then straightened up and nodded to Draco. "I'm willing to help him any way I can, but I wish I could do this in St. Mungo's."

"I'm not taking him there until he asks to go." Draco folded his arms.

For a moment, they glared at each other in silence, until Theresa glanced slightly to the side and nodded. "Perhaps you are right," she said. "I think it may be better to ignore his wishes in this case, but it is true that that edge of freedom seems to be essential for him. We may at least wait and see what happens."

She left, then, and Draco went to Harry's room to check up on him. He found him curled deeply into the middle of the blankets, shoulders hunched as if he were cold, now and then curling more and more deeply. He was grinding his teeth again, which shouldn't be possible with a Dreamless Sleep Potion.

Draco hesitated. He wanted to hold Harry, but Harry had said he wanted to be alone. So, in the end, he compromised and cast a spell that made the sensation of a pair of warm arms enfold Harry. Harry sighed. His shoulders slowly relaxed, and then he shifted backward, seeming to move deeper into the invisible embrace.

Draco shut the door quietly.


	13. When 'I Don't Know' Is The Best Answer

_Chapter 13—When 'I Don't Know' Is the Best Answer_

Harry woke slowly the next morning, blinking at the ceiling. He had first awoken late yesterday evening, but Trippy had brought him a sandwich and a cup of tea, at his quiet request, without his having to leave the room. Harry had eaten and then fallen asleep again.

It somewhat surprised him that Draco wasn't there. Didn't he live to intrude where he wasn't wanted and stare expectantly at Harry?

Then Harry shrugged again. _I don't think that's the case, or he wouldn't have bothered bringing me Theresa to begin with, or doing anything but demanding what he wants of me. And there's no law that says he has to be consistent._

Trippy appeared with toast, marmalade, tea, and pancakes. Harry eyed it for a moment, then sighed.

"Master Harry is wanting something else?" Trippy asked at once, her ears standing straight up on her head and quivering.

Harry hesitated. He felt ungrateful, given that Trippy hadn't had to bring him breakfast, either. And this was still more and more luxurious food than he'd eaten at any point during the last five years. He didn't need more, did he? As long as he ate healthy food and in small amounts, he could stay in good shape.

The problem was, he _wanted_ strawberries.

It was a weakness. He didn't like it that Draco made him want things. Strawberries weren't a necessity. He should be able to watch them come and go in perfect aloofness. Admitting otherwise meant Draco won.

_Only a small victory, _Harry rationalized to himself.

His conscience pointed out that that habit of rationalization would lose him the contest, and besides, he was only doing it to justify having strawberries. Harry ignored it. He was evaluating his usual habit of thinking that nothing he did mattered to other people—unless it was Auror work—in a new light.

_If nobody cares what I have on my breakfasts, why shouldn't I have strawberries when I want them and they're available?_ The logic he'd followed all those years, that the best food he could eat was the cheapest and least tasty, suddenly seemed as suspect as the idea that he should have been eating hearty meals all along.

"Strawberries, please, Trippy," he said at last, and picked up the cup of tea, cradling it in his hands to warm them. The house-elf beamed at him like a proud parent and disappeared.

Harry started eating, and grudgingly had to admit that the food was as good as it always was. And when Trippy fetched him the strawberries, his tongue tingled as he ate them, and the sweetness that flooded his mouth, too delicate to be described, made him forget his compunctions.

_It's just fruit, that's all. Does it really matter if I don't have it? Who does that benefit? It apparently makes me less healthy._ He swallowed, and reached for another strawberry. Eating with his fingers felt decadent, but he suspected it wasn't nearly as decadent as the dinner he'd eaten with Draco and Narcissa, or the pool of warm water.

_The pool…_

Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He'd avoided thinking about that, and about the kisses Draco had given him, but that wasn't hard, given the emotional upheaval the session with Theresa had made him relive. Now, though, he had to think about them. All other thoughts seemed to have fled his brain. He tried to analyze those things, and what they said about him, in the calm, dispassionate way that he'd approached the actions of the Dark wizards he caught.

He seemed to want and miss sex. That much was certain. He still didn't see why it had to be sex with a man, or sex with Draco. If Draco's theories about touch-deprivation were true, he would have reacted as hungrily to Neville Longbottom if he had been the one to touch him, or Ginny—

Harry shook his head sharply and ate another strawberry. No, he wasn't going to think about Ginny. Not even the way he was sure he'd heard her scream when Voldemort's stone had landed. He'd lived through that yesterday. It was done, it was in the past, they were dead and if not exactly buried—the bodies had been too thoroughly destroyed for that, so blasted that no one could even say what magic had killed them—then not something he had to think about all the time.

_Theresa will make you think about it._

_I was thinking about sex, though._

So. He didn't need to tell himself he wasn't gay. He wasn't. He could choose who he was attracted to. Harry was sure that was still within his power.

_So what do you want, then?_

And that was the question. Harry, beyond feeling embarrassed by something so small at this point, asked Trippy for whipped cream, which she gleefully provided. He stirred the strawberry he held in the whipped cream and swallowed it, then had to close his eyes at the taste that resulted.

It not only applied to sex, it applied to everything.

He had accepted that things would have to change. _Things_, not him, or the way he related to and thought about the world. He wanted to survive Malfoy Manor both as healthy as possible and as unscathed as possible. He was not going to be conned into a sexual relationship with Draco just because Draco wanted one. If that was what Harry really desired—and it wasn't—then he would have it. But not otherwise.

So he wanted things to change, a little. That meant finding a partner when he was done at Malfoy Manor, someone who could understand what he wanted and whose needs Harry could fulfill. A woman who worked at the Ministry? Harry could not think who else would accept his mad schedule and the way that he constantly went into danger to save lives, except someone who worked in the same place and had the same ideals.

But beyond that, he didn't know, and he didn't know what more than the most basic necessities he could request from Draco, who was clearly determined to help him with more than that.

He finished eating the rest of the meal in thoughtful silence, then put on the first set of robes he found in his wardrobe and opened the door of the room. He would find Draco, and tell him that he didn't want to talk to Theresa today. He wanted to fly instead.

His plans changed a bit when he opened his door and found not Draco, but Narcissa Malfoy standing there with white roses at her neck and throat and her direct blue gaze fastened on him.

"Mr. Potter," she said. "I wish to speak with you."

* * *

Draco slowed as he came around the corner towards Harry's room. He'd left him alone to sleep and eat as he saw fit, but Trippy had finally popped into the kitchen squeaking a happy torrent of words about Harry finishing a good breakfast, and so he'd yielded to his curiosity. He heard voices, though, and that puzzled him. He hadn't invited any friends to the Manor yet.

He peered around the corner, and blinked when he saw his mother standing in front of Harry's door. Harry didn't look any less surprised to see her, which reassured Draco somewhat. If Harry and his mother had already managed to plot behind his back, he would have wondered how he hadn't known that. He didn't wish to slip _that_ far behind Harry in their undeclared war.

"Mr. Potter," his mother said. "I wish to speak with you."

Harry blinked in surprise, then straightened and flung his head back, a cool mask settling in place on his features. Draco froze in delight, and even though Harry might see him if he looked in the right direction, he couldn't bring himself to move. This was a Harry-expression he had never seen before. Unlike the unfeeling contentment that carried him through the day, broken only by a smile when he solved a particularly difficult case, this was a look of courteously restrained contempt. Draco felt dizzy just contemplating it, just realizing that Harry could have that normal a reaction to someone he didn't like but felt compelled to be polite to.

_You've fallen so hard._

Draco ignored the truth, in favor of watching the scene unfold in the hall in front of him.

"Mrs. Malfoy, do speak," Harry said now. "I'm a guest in your house. The least I owe you is courtesy."

"Technically, the Manor is Draco's." Narcissa stood with her back to him, so Draco couldn't see the look on her face, but he could perfectly envision the well-bred sneer that went with her words. "But what I wish to speak with you about may remain between us." She moved a little closer to Harry, and now Draco had no doubt that she was looking up at Harry through her lashes. It was a trick that melted most men.

Harry just continued to watch her. Draco lifted a hand to his mouth to stifle a grin. He had never thought he would be grateful for Harry's distrust of social niceties, or of former Slytherins, but here it served well to keep him out of Narcissa's clutches.

"Please speak, Mrs. Malfoy," Harry repeated.

Narcissa sighed. "Mr. Potter, my son is the one gem of my old age." She paused.

Harry obliged her, but surely not in the manner she wanted. "Someone so lovely could never be considered old, Mrs. Malfoy." The compliment was flat. It didn't need to be impolite to be—well, impolite, Draco thought. The very fact that Harry didn't put much of the force of his passion behind it made it an insult.

"Thank you, Mr. Potter." One thing that Draco had to admire about his mother was her persistence. If she didn't get what she wanted on the first try, she didn't show her impatience; she adjusted the angle of her attack slightly and came in again. "As I said, Draco is the one truly priceless thing left to me, and I must ask. What are your intentions in regards to him? Could you become his lover, even someone who lives with him, who truly loves him? Or do you plan to abandon him and go on the way that so many other people have in the past?"

Draco had to bite his lip to keep from interfering in the conversation. _He_ left his lovers, not the other way around.

And he was coming to think more and more that Harry was the one he wouldn't want to leave. But he didn't know that for certain yet, and it would be more interesting to see what could be learned from letting them proceed uninterrupted.

Harry's lids had dropped, half-shading his eyes. Draco's breath quickened. God, that was just the look he'd imagined on Harry's face after a bout of energetic sex when neither of them were ready to go to sleep yet.

"I don't know," Harry answered evenly.

Narcissa was disconcerted. Draco could see that much in the way she suddenly stepped away from Harry, though it was only half a step. "You must know, Mr. Potter," she said. "You are here, aren't you?"

"Because he kidnapped me." And now Harry sounded amused, though Draco was wise enough to know it was probably at his mother's expense rather than because he didn't mind the abduction. "That's the only reason, Mrs. Malfoy, I promise, the sole reason. I haven't decided what my intentions are in regards to Draco yet. On the one hand, he brought me here against my will, and he's done many things I haven't wanted or agreed with. On the other, he does genuinely want to help me, I believe, and he has done other things that rouse my gratitude for him."

"If it is no dearer emotion than gratitude, I will be content," Narcissa said, and now her voice had gone even and cold. "I do not think that Draco is in love with you, Mr. Potter. He is merely obsessed."

_There are worse foundations for love than obsession. _Draco knew no one understood his intense fascination with Harry, but it _did_ irritate him that they all tried to brush it off as less powerful than it was.

Harry shrugged. "Then he's in no worse a position than I am. I don't know what I really want of him. I don't know how this month will end. I don't know how much I'll change in the meantime. I don't know if I want to be his friend, his distant acquaintance, or something else. And I almost suspect that I may end up his lover, though we would probably kill each other inside a night, so I imagine not."

Draco clenched his fists.

_If he needs freedom, if he needs control, if he needs the distance and the time from me to make up his mind, he can have it. Anything he needs. God, I want him. _

Narcissa stood still for a long moment. Draco knew her lips would be a thin white line without seeing them.

Then she nodded. "Thank you, Mr. Potter," she said. "You have been more helpful than I expected."

Her plan to make an alliance with Harry behind his back had failed, Draco knew. The sudden spark that lit Harry's gaze said he knew it, too. He inclined his head in an ironic little half-bow and watched her go in silence.

Then he turned his attention to the corner and raised an eyebrow. "You can come out now, Draco."

Draco didn't see any use in hiding. He stepped out, and locked his eyes with Harry's. Harry looked back in silence. His gaze was as open, as frankly assessing, as Draco's was.

Draco didn't miss the charge that grew in the air between them, though he didn't know, from the slight confusion dawning in Harry's face, if Harry knew how to read it. At last Draco looked aside a bit, to give them both time to recover. He couldn't help smiling as he did so. No, it wasn't just obsession and touch-deprivation driving this. There was a connection between them, an attraction that he might be able to count on to pull Harry closer because it was so subtle.

"You heard that whole conversation," Harry said.

"Did you lie because I eavesdropped?" Draco asked simply. That was the important thing.

"I—no." Harry's voice turned dry. "You're not important enough to me for that."

_I will be. I intend to be. _But Draco had a different tactic in mind now. At the very least, it would give Harry what he needed. At best, it would lure him in and bind him more firmly than Draco's actions could.

He would seduce from a distance. He would retreat for now, and only touch Harry when Harry asked him for it, or when it was a genuine accident. If his theory about the attraction between them was correct, then Harry would circle in closer because he couldn't help himself, because there was something there they both needed to explore.

"I'd like to claim my forfeit of you," Draco said.

He could feel Harry's spine stiffen, and the complicated emotions in his voice hidden under the bland surface. "Yes?"

"Let's do something you want to do." Draco turned around in time to surprise the surprise on Harry's face. He smiled in spite of himself. "I only specify that it be something that you really _enjoy_, not something you only choose because you think I'll like it."

Harry studied him carefully. Draco hid his motives behind a helpful smile. In reality, getting rid of the forfeit cast away part of the power he had over Harry. It set them up more as equals.

And, of course, it showed that he could be accommodating, and that served the seduction plan he now had in motion.

Harry nodded. Then he grinned, and Draco's heart beat a little faster.

"I have the _perfect_ activity," Harry said, his voice slow as treacle.

Draco leaned forward. "Tell me."


	14. Plans, Competitions, Trials

Thank you for all the reviews! I'm very happy that people are involved in and enthusiastic about this story.

_Chapter 14—Plans, Competitions, Trials_

Draco rolled his eyes as he slung a leg over the Flameflare. "I shouldn't be surprised that you chose flying," he said.

"You remember what I told you." Harry was tossing a Snitch up and down in his palm, squinting at the sky over the Quidditch Pitch. Draco hungrily studied the way the wind tossed a particular section of his dark fringe in the air, then looked away. Looking so obviously when he wouldn't get to touch for some time hurt. "I want to see if I can actually compete against you in the air. Flying's one thing. That was always instinctive for me, and it just came back. But I had to learn the rules of Quidditch, you know, and I haven't played since sixth year at Hogwarts." His face darkened, but he refused to let any of the emotions touch his voice as he spoke, despite Draco's desire to hear them. "So I want to play against you now." He turned a sharp grin on Draco suddenly. "Just think, Malfoy, you might even get the chance to _win_ a game against me for once."

Draco stiffened. Among his memories of Hogwarts, the ones of Harry beating him to the Snitch time and time again were not his happiest. He felt a fire of competition stir in his blood, and for the first time in days, it wasn't directed at Harry's stubborn resistance against even acknowledging that Draco made him feel good. "I _will_ win," he said. "As you pointed out, Harry, Quidditch takes practice."

Harry chuckled under his breath and tossed the Snitch into the air. A moment later, it had vanished and Harry was lifting off the ground on his own Flameflare, flying in pursuit of it.

Draco's stomach tightened again with want, and this time he didn't think he could be blamed for his stare. It was not like Harry, his head lifted and his eyes fastened on the clouds blowing in on the stern wind, would notice. He was pure glory on a broom. Draco had a right to watch him.

Then he rose himself, and began to circle, looking for the Snitch. He remembered the rules easily enough, and adopted wide, hawk-like rings, his eyes narrowed and his head relaxed as he turned it from side to side. Tense your neck too much, he knew from playing hours-long games with Blaise, and you could injure yourself when you finally caught the Snitch.

Harry imitated the hawk-circles. Draco smirked. _He really has forgotten how to play. He has to follow me and see what I do._

The thought flew out of his head when Harry spoke across the distance between their brooms, his voice casual.

"So I've decided that you're right about sex, Draco."

Draco blinked, and tried to tell himself this was a distraction technique, but Harry didn't take off in a sweeping dive in the next moment. He just continued in his circle, cocking his head back and raising an eyebrow when Draco didn't answer him immediately.

"Something wrong, Malfoy? Giving up already?" His voice had a smug undertone.

Draco bared his teeth. Harry _couldn't_ mean what he thought he meant. He'd said that he wanted some distance from Draco for the present, so he could decide what he felt about him.

On the other hand, Harry had said that when he knew that Draco was listening to him. So he could have lied, as much to throw him off the track as to puzzle Narcissa. That meant—

That meant that Harry was more Slytherin than Draco liked to think about, honestly.

"Not giving up, Potter," he answered, and then saw a gleam of gold beyond the bristles of Harry's broom, and stooped towards it.

Harry surged forwards instinctively, but then he flipped over and flew backwards and upside-down towards the area where Draco had seen the Snitch. Draco snarled under his breath. _Goddamn unfair bastard. God wants Harry to win at Quidditch. That's all it is._

But the ball had vanished as easily as if it could Apparate instead of merely fly, and Harry had to work hard to keep from slamming into Draco. He ended up hovering close to him instead. Draco could smell his sweat and feel the heat radiating from his skin, but he also felt better able to answer the question.

"You want to have sex with me?" he asked quietly.

Harry tossed his head, and his eyes widened a little, his Adam's apple twitching hard as he swallowed. "I didn't mean that, Malfoy," he said.

_But your voice is a little hoarse, and look at those eyes. _Draco allowed himself a smug smile. Harry would only take it as more evidence of his intolerable arrogance, not satisfaction at his response.

"I meant that I probably need some kind of companionship in my life," Harry continued, in the words of someone discussing whether he should get a dog. "A woman who works at the Ministry would be perfect, don't you think? Someone who understands my schedule, my needs and wants."

Draco could picture it too easily. There were some people at the Ministry like Harry, though he'd been the worst example. Two lonely people might well drift together and cling there for what comfort sex and a few exchanged words now and then could provide.

_He deserves more than that, and he's going to have it. _But Draco was not ready to show that determination yet. Harry was feeling him out, not keeping strictly to the terms of the distance he'd set. _He probably wants to see what kind of person I am when I'm not constantly flirting with him, to decide if I'm right for an acquaintance, or a lover._

On the other hand, if Harry was testing him, Draco saw no reason not to do the same thing right back. "That sounds wonderful, Harry," he said carelessly.

Another blink. "Really?"

"Of course," said Draco. "I'm sure that there would be many women who would grace the bed of the Boy-Who-Lived because he was lonely and needed someone to fuck. Act a little more charming, and she might even pretend to love you for it."

He was close enough to hear Harry's teeth audibly grind. He tossed his head again, and Draco felt magic rise from him like a heat shimmer. 'That's not what I _meant_, Malfoy. Don't twist my words."

"It sure sounded like it," said Draco bluntly. "Think about it, Harry. You're not saying that you want to find someone to love or, heaven forbid, be friends with. Just someone to have sex with. And of course your _schedule_ is the thing that rules what you'll decide to do with your life, not an ambition or a passion or even a desire. Is that really what you want your love life to be like, Harry?"

The slim figure on the Flameflare spun away from him, twirling towards the ground in a sideways maneuver that took him through barrel rolls, and which Draco doubted he could duplicate. He dived, cursing again. The conversation might be the most important thing, but that didn't mean he wanted Harry to win the game.

Harry pulled up long before the ground, though, shaking his head again, and picked up their exchange as though he had never left it. "I'm making a place for someone else in my life. Isn't that what you wanted?"

"The other person has to feel needed and wanted, too," Draco said, unable to believe that he was giving these kinds of lessons to a Gryffindor. "Have you thought of that, Harry? It's not all about you, you know."

"Of course. I know that."

Draco thought he did. Given what he'd dedicated his life to, Harry had a terminal case of selflessness. It was far more likely that he was thinking in terms of an equal relationship with his partner, and simply not thinking of how his words came off to someone who listened.

_And he needs more than that. He'd grow bored with his Ministry woman sooner or later, though he might be courteous enough not to leave her. He needs passion and a force equal to his own, meeting his, challenging him._

"Then speak like it," Draco snapped smartly, and feigned a Wronski Feint at the ground. Harry, the infuriating bastard, recognized it, and just hovered where he'd been. Draco pulled up, panting hard, and called across the distance between them, "What _do_ you want, Harry? Think of that first."

"I have," said Harry, drawing nearer again. "And the answer is that I don't know yet." His face was unusually thoughtful, too thoughtful for Quidditch. And of course he wasn't even breathing fast. _Bastard. _"But you've reminded me that there are important things I've been neglecting. Emotional comfort. Food." He hesitated briefly. "Sex."

Draco studied him through hooded eyes for a moment. Harry just looked back at him, and Draco was convinced that while there might be a competition here, there was little to no manipulation. Harry was simply telling Draco as much of the truth as he could, and testing Draco to see if he measured up to Harry's conception of what he needed. The tests themselves would probably tell Harry a good deal of what he wanted, as well.

Draco did something unnatural for him, and responded to honesty with honesty. "And have you thought about me in those terms at all?"

Harry flushed. He half-closed his own eyes, and said, "I like women, Malfoy."

_Oh, so he resorts to last names when he wants to put some distance between us, does he? _Draco wouldn't permit that. His new plan said that he wasn't going to touch and flirt as heavily with Harry as he had before, but neither would he turn aside from the challenge like some coy adolescent girl.

"How sure are you of that?" he said.

Harry pulled his broom a short distance back. "Sure," he said. "It's women that—" Then he clenched his teeth, and his face flushed even redder. "I don't know why I'm discussing this with you," he muttered. "If I don't know what I want, then why should I think you could help?" And he shot away in search of the Snitch again.

Draco found himself smiling so widely his face hurt, despite the inconclusive nature of the conversation. _I know why, Harry. You've acknowledged this as something you need, and there's someone right here with whom you have an intense relationship and who's willing as all fuck. You can do worse than feel me out, and some part of you does know that._

Harry gave a low shout. Draco looked down and saw the Snitch darting through the cropped grass of the Quidditch Pitch, heading for the western side and a patch of thick brush that grew there.

Draco knew the layout of the Pitch extremely well, and thus knew a shortcut that would take him to the brush more quickly. He dipped just beneath the force of the wind and sped around in what looked like a complete loop, but in reality would turn him sharply to the north, take advantage of a prevailing wind current, and bear him to the Snitch ahead of Harry.

Another shout came from below him. Draco looked down, wondering if the Snitch had changed course.

What he saw made his breath catch in his throat.

The Snitch had indeed changed direction, darting sharply past Harry and back into the air. Harry was obviously unwilling to pull up and chase it higher, even though that was what any sane person would do. He'd thrown himself across the broom, gripping it with his legs alone, and extended one reaching arm, fingers open to grasp the Snitch.

His weight, meanwhile, was overbalancing the broom. It wouldn't have, ordinarily—and the faithful Flameflare was working hard to compensate—but the wind was simply too brisk, and picking up moment by moment. Harry tilted and tipped, and then spilled towards the Pitch, only a few inches past the Snitch, but more than twenty feet above the ground.

Harry seemed to see only the one distance, not the other. He gave another incoherent yell.

Then he swung himself out from the broom in a somersault, one hand flailing out and grasping the Snitch. Draco could feel his mouth opening and his lungs inflating, though what he was going to scream he never knew. Visions of shattered limbs and blood filled his head.

Then they went away, and he saw what was actually there.

Harry hooked the broom with his feet as it dropped, dragging it along and towards him. In a complicated movement that Draco could barely follow, he was kneeling on it a moment later, and then he'd dropped off so that his right arm was flung around the broom in a tight hold, the shaft tucked into the crook of his elbow. He held up his left hand, and Draco could just make out the blur of the Snitch's fluttering wings through his clenched fingers.

Harry laughed.

Draco found his voice, but it was only to yell, "Are you _mad_?"

Harry laughed again, and then hauled himself up, without letting go of the Snitch, so that he was sitting sideways on the broom. A moment later, he was fully astride again, and making for the ground. Draco followed him, determined to get some answers as to what he thought he was doing. His heart was beating an odd tattoo pattern against his chest, as the full impact of what he'd seen only now hit him. _Fuck, fuck, fuck. I almost lost him._

He landed on the grass just behind Harry, who'd collapsed. "What did you think you were doing?" Draco shouted, and hopped off the Flameflare.

Harry rolled over, saw his face, and laughed again. "Oh, come on, Draco, I wasn't going to _die_," he said. "I knew exactly what I was doing."

"How?" Draco fought against the urge to stomp his foot.

Harry shrugged. "I don't know," he said. "I just knew what was going to happen. I was thinking with my muscles, not my head." He held up his left hand. "And see? I won."

"_Obviously_, you weren't thinking," Draco said direly, and folded his arms. The focus of his concern had shifted again, to the fact that he knew he would have been too far away to catch Harry if he fell. Damn it, Harry could have died, and he insisted on treating it like some enormous _joke._

Harry raised an eyebrow as he scrambled to his feet. "Draco, my life has been in more or less constant danger since I was eleven," he said cheerfully. "I don't think I'd know how to function without it."

"Some solution that doesn't include jumping from brooms would be appreciated," Draco muttered.

Harry tilted his head and strode towards him. Draco wanted to back up at the curious, determined expression on his face, but that would involve losing. He forced himself to drop his arms and take a step forward, determined to meet whatever stupid thing Harry would do head-on.

Even he was surprised, though, when Harry reached out, took his chin gently but firmly in long fingers, and drew his face close to kiss him.

It was a far more chaste kiss than the ones they'd shared so far. There was no tongue, for one thing. For another, Harry seemed intent on pressing his lips against Draco's mostly as an academic exercise, to see what would happen. The expression of calm curiosity on his face hadn't altered yet.

And then he must have passed his unseen test, or maybe Draco did, because his mouth softened and parted, and Draco felt his tongue curl inward and probe gently at his.

Somehow, Draco summoned the superhuman control required to keep from lunging forward and dominating the kiss. He would show Harry what he could be when he wasn't desperate for his partner's touch, even though he was, in this case. He let his tongue entwine languidly with Harry's, and concentrated on intensity rather than passion. If this didn't outdo every kiss Harry had ever shared with a woman, Draco was determined that the fault wouldn't lie with him.

Abruptly, Harry broke away, backing up and staring at Draco with wide eyes. Then he turned and hurried towards the Quidditch shed, carrying his Flameflare and the Snitch with him.

Draco blinked, licking his lips. Then he shrugged. He would take the optimistic interpretation, and say that Harry had learned more from the kiss than he wanted.

He allowed himself to smile. _He'll come to me of his own free will, someday. I just need to be patient. _

Patience was one thing Draco wasn't good at. But he would try to be, for Harry's sake.


	15. Five More Reasons Harry Is Not Gay

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_Chapter 15—Five More Reasons Harry Is Not Gay_

Harry knew he was hurrying away from Draco with undignified speed. He did not particularly care. He was desperate to keep him from realizing what had become apparent to Harry after a moment of feeling Draco's tongue against his.

He had a hard-on.

This was more humiliating than any of the others he'd suffered so far. He could blame those on Draco acting like a complete idiot. But this one—all it had taken was a kiss, a kiss he initiated, and he was acting as though Draco was right and he really _did_ favor men.

He'd meant the kiss as the answer to a question. He was curious about how Draco would make him respond when he was the one controlling the kiss. He had been absolutely sure that it would tell him _something_.

And now he had his answer, but he didn't like it, and wished for something else to be true.

_I'm not gay. I can't. This is—this isn't true. I wanted to know something more about myself, but this isn't it. Because._

He put the Quidditch equipment away, and kept his back turned as Draco came up behind him. Draco asked some question that Harry didn't hear fully over the blood pounding in his ears, but he could make out the "—do now?" part.

Harry sighed out, and then feigned a yawn. "I'm having an adrenaline crash," he murmured. "I'd like to go back to my room and sleep for a while, actually." A few hours should be enough to will the hard-on away.

Draco sounded disappointed. "Oh. Well. All right. Send Trippy to me when you're awake."

Harry chanced a quick look at him. Draco's eyes were bright, his face flushed, and he seemed utterly unconscious of how aroused he looked. Harry, by main force of will, kept himself from glancing down to see if Draco had an erection. He nodded, shrugged off the heavier Quidditch robes, and then walked briskly back to the house, trying to make it seem as if all the red in his cheeks came from the constant wind. Hotter than even the blush was the sensation of Draco's eyes on his back.

Walking was difficult. Harry made up for it by rubbing his right arm now and then as though he favored it, but refused all Draco's solicitous offers of a massage.

_I'm not gay. I'm not. Even this—there has to be some other reason for this, some reason I reacted this way._

_Because there is no way that I could possibly fancy, or have sex with, Draco sodding Malfoy._

* * *

Harry shut the door behind him with a harsh gasp of relief and sat down on his bed. Then he covered his face with his hands, and did what he could to slow his breathing. Perhaps if he could talk his body into thinking he was about to fall asleep, it would be fooled and relax.

But some minutes passed, and his hard-on still throbbed relentlessly beneath his trousers. The temptation to reach down and touch it was growing worse. But Harry knew that if he wanked, Malfoy would have won, and even _if_ this loss, like eating the strawberries, was private, it was more profound than the other.

He stretched his arms over his head and lay back on the pillow, so that he could appear relaxed if Draco or one of the house-elves looked in on him. He casually slung his right leg up so that his erection wasn't visible from the door.

The shifting put more pressure on it, though, and Harry gasped and arched his back. For a moment, the idea of what relief he could bring himself was stronger than the humiliation that would set in afterwards.

Then he clenched a hand, and shook his head. _No. I'm not gay because I can resist this. That must mean that if there was a woman here for me to get aroused over, I wouldn't be able to resist it._

He closed his eyes. Sleep. Sleep, that was the key to overcoming this. He imagined a calm gray pool, his desk in the Auror office free of paperwork, his own bed in his own flat. He imagined motionless sheets and long mornings of sleeping in, though he hadn't actually done that in the past eleven years except when he was at Malfoy Manor. Peace, calm, relaxation. He would absorb it from the air by osmosis.

His arousal was becoming painful.

Harry shuddered. He—he didn't want to. It would mean he lost, and it would mean he was gay, and both things—

_No, wait. It could mean that I'm just aroused by men. _

_But I don't want to be that, either. I know who I am. Malfoy and his prissy little Manor are not going to change that. Nor his pet Healer, either._

He had to concede that Draco was right about some things. That it would do him good to talk about his grief, for example. But this was something more personal, something Draco had no _right_ to be right about. Harry was not going to admit that he was attracted to men just because Malfoy wanted it that way.

He lay there, and lay there, and the erection remained. Harry could feel the flush of humiliation joining the embarrassment on his cheeks now.

_This is ridiculous. I'm not a teenage boy anymore. I'm a trained Auror. I should be able to control my body better than this._

He tried to remain as still as he had been taught to do during an ambush, when he and his partner might have to wait hours before the Death Eater or Dark wizard they were tracking appeared. He could relax his muscles one by one. He could derive entertainment from counting his breaths or his heartbeats, while all the time his alertness coiled beneath the surface like a snake in its burrow, ready to strike when their target Apparated in.

But he'd never attempted to hold an ambush with an erection, either.

He flicked an eye open and cast a _Tempus_ charm after what seemed like an intolerable amount of time. It actually had been an intolerable amount of time—nearly an hour. Draco would expect him to wake in a little while, or perhaps send Trippy to check up on him.

And damn it, he was only harder. If that was possible.

Harry had heard that there were spells men used to get rid of inconvenient erections, but he didn't know any. He'd hardly had any erections in the last few years, never mind inconvenient ones. Besides, sending Trippy to the library to fetch the necessary books for him made his face burn all the hotter.

_Would it be so bad? _said the voice of horrible temptation. _Wanking seems to be the only way to get rid of it. And what if you could fantasize about women? That would prove once and for all that you aren't gay, wouldn't it?_

Harry ran a hand through his hair. The hand was shaking, and he scowled at this evidence of his weakness. Perhaps the voice was right, though, and the only way to prove himself was with another action, the way the kiss had been an action.

Besides, he honestly had no other idea how to get rid of it before he had to see Draco again.

Hesitantly, he pushed his robes back, and then his trousers down. Each change in position made his cock brush against cloth and struck him like the touch of fingers. Harry shut his eyes tightly and hoped he wouldn't come before he removed his clothes. That would be something a _child_ would do, and he was no child.

Luckily, he didn't. Pants followed trousers, and then he took himself in hand and began to stroke. The relief was so great that he let a shaky groan escape his throat before he settled down to business, trying as hard as he could to just make an orgasm happen so that it would be done.

Of course, he just _had_ to remember what he liked, and his hand slowed down, his fingers slipping and lingering around the head. He had always preferred wanking slowly, teasing himself with various images of what could happen before settling on the one that would make him come. And the things he'd learned through his muscles, he really _didn't_ ever forget. Harry had known how to wank, and he wanked that way now, forgetting the urgency of it for a few minutes, head bowed as his body twitched from pleasure and his cock grew wetter and wetter with the clear liquid spread up and down it.

Then he told himself that he was doing this to prove he wasn't gay, and so he should imagine a woman.

And there his mind came up blank, because, other than Narcissa Malfoy and a few of his partners, who were usually slightly older than he was and already married, and some Dark witches, he couldn't picture a woman.

The thought of Ginny occurred to him, and he shoved it violently away. Wanking to the image of a dead woman was not—not clean.

Harry shrugged impatiently and sped the pace of his hand. Did it really matter what he thought about? He could just get off, then. That should prove he was gay as well as thinking about women would. After all, if he thought about how good it felt, then he wasn't thinking about whether a man had managed to arouse him like this, was he?

His mind turned to Draco then.

And it had been going so _well_, too.

Most unhelpfully, his mind provided him with images of Draco's mouth, from the way he'd kissed Harry after the dinner with Narcissa to the moment in the pool when his soft talking, his lingering over certain sounds in the words, had made Harry come. Harry gasped, and the phantom sensations seemed to enter his mouth and ears to join with the images, and God, he was _jerking_ himself now, and this felt so good, and he wasn't going to last much longer.

_But I'm not gay, because I don't want to think about this. I just can't avoid it, since I'm in the same house with him._

The image that loomed before his eyes after a few moments was one that he hadn't ever seen, only created. Draco, his face flushed and his naked body—that, Harry knew from the pool—mottled up and down with red marks and bites, one arm sprawled over his head, the other hand between his legs and toying with himself. His eyes were lidded, and he was looking directly at Harry, as much to say that his arousal had happened _because_ of him.

Harry sagged forward and came with a groan that was half release and half denial. Luckily, his orgasm only seemed to last a few moments this time, and didn't exhaust him like the one in the pool had. And then he was left with a puddle of cooling come, and a mind scrambling to come up with one more excuse so he wouldn't have to call himself gay.

_Well, even if I do wank to images of Draco, it's not like I ever have to act on it. How hard would it be to _not _have sex with someone? Thousands of people do it every day. I did it for eleven years. I can do this, I really can._

Harry shook his head and cast a swift cleaning spell on himself, removing the evidence. He tugged his clothes back on, and then nearly split his jaw with a yawn. Maybe it had exhausted him, after all.

He barely managed to curl up before his muscles all relaxed at once, and he settled into the depths of contented sleep. His last, drowsy thought was that it didn't have to feel this good, damn it.

* * *

Draco tilted his head curiously when Harry followed Trippy into the library a few hours later. He knew Harry really had rested; that much was obvious from the sleep-heavy softness of his eyes and the ragged tangle of his hair. And he seemed more relaxed than he had when he'd practically run off the Quidditch Pitch.

But something had changed in the intervening time, anyway. Harry gave him a friendly but distant nod and sat down in the chair on the other side of the open reading area, instead of the chair across from Draco or the couch beside him, which Draco had pointedly left open. Trippy fetched him a book on wizarding history, and Harry opened it, studied the table of contents, and then flipped to a chapter as if he'd always wanted to read this exact information.

No flirting. No edged questions. No acknowledgment of Draco's presence, in fact, even as a friend.

It angered Draco. It was fine for Harry not to know what he wanted, but to blow hot and cold like this was irritating. Draco almost set his own book aside and engaged Harry in direct conversation, but then decided that that would mean _he_ was losing. Harry would have succeeded in bothering him.

Instead, Draco cleared his throat and said, in the bored drawl that his mother had insisted he perfect even before he went to Hogwarts, "I suppose you should know that Theresa wants to speak with you again tomorrow."

Harry didn't bother looking up from his book. "I didn't think I'd escape her forever." His voice held amused resignation. "Yes. Very well. I'll speak with her again, and see what she can tell me about my weaknesses."

Draco raised his eyebrows. "Therapy is supposed to be about healing you, Harry. Theresa isn't an enemy who's going to figure out your weaknesses and taunt you with them, you know."

"I meant that I could know my weaknesses and correct them." Harry's eyes blinked innocently at him, brilliant green. "That was all." And then he went back to the book. It must be fascinating.

Draco shut his book carefully and set it aside. Well, perhaps he could be direct, as long as he didn't show a sign of irritation while he did it. "Did I do something to anger you, Harry?"

"Of course not." Harry looked up again. "How would that have happened?"

"You did hurry away from the Quidditch Pitch rather suddenly," Draco pointed out.

Harry laughed a bit. "I was forced to come to a mortifying realization," he said. "I _said_ that I wanted to speak to you like a friend, and then I flirted with you and treated you like a potential lover. That's a silly thing to do when one doesn't want to complicate a relationship. I had to take a few hours to compose myself. I hope you'll forgive me. I shouldn't have done that." He leaned around his book and held out his hand to Draco. "Friends?"

_And not lovers._ Draco heard the declaration as easily as if Harry had shouted it into his mind. Something had happened, something that made Harry retreat behind barriers higher than that book. And unless he wanted to break his plan of distant seduction, he couldn't exactly grab Harry and kiss him into submission, the way he yearned to do.

What he could do, and did, was grasp the offered hand firmly for a moment, then trail his fingers along Harry's palm as he pulled his hand back. As he had expected, that made Harry's eyes widen and his pupils dilate a bit. Draco smiled. Harry could take it for a friendly smile all he liked. Draco would play by the rules—on the surface. However, he was not about to act as if they'd never kissed. That was stupid. And Draco had a reputation to maintain about his own lack of stupidity, while Harry didn't need to worry about his.

_He wants to know what he wants? I think he does know now, part of the answer, and he's running from it. Fine. I'll just be tempting enough—the perfect mixture of the kind, understanding friend and the lover responsive to flirting—that he won't want to run._

"Friends, of course, Harry," he said, and turned back to his own book. Perhaps Harry watched him for a moment before he began his pretense of reading. Draco didn't look up to find out.

He just added a little more patience and determination to his own mental walls. _I can wait. I can wait. When the right moment comes, Harry will have talked himself into it, and he'll have no one to blame but himself when we go to bed._

_The one thing I refuse to be for him is a source for guilt or excuses._

* * *

Harry eyed Draco uncertainly. He had been sure that Draco wouldn't accept his request, and now—

_But he did. That means that you can pursue your plan. Just don't talk to him like a lover, don't touch him like one, don't kiss him, and don't make stupid tests of his resolve and yours, and nothing more will happen. _

Of course nothing more would happen. Because he wasn't gay.

Harry went back to reading. That the words blurred in front of his eyes was not his fault.


	16. Just Another Little Therapy Session

Thanks for the reviews, once more!

_Chapter 16—Just Another Little Therapy Session_

"Hello, Harry." Theresa's face was soft, her eyes bright and understanding and compassionate. Harry wished she wouldn't look like that. There was no use pretending that this session would be anything but unpleasant. It was the sixth day of the month he and Draco had agreed on, and Theresa had come back that morning just after breakfast, patiently determined to see and speak with him.

Harry had agreed to let her do so, and even to let Draco watch, because he knew putting them off wouldn't work. Draco would whinge and sulk and sulk and whinge. Besides, he would know most of what Harry told Theresa, thanks to spending time with him during Hogwarts or researching his life since.

And the Healer—well, she wouldn't leave until she thought she had healed him.

"Hello, Theresa," Harry said, and tried to keep his voice so neutral that she could tell nothing from it. Of course, she nodded wisely, which made him squirm as he sat. Once he sat, though, he concentrated on keeping his hands and feet motionless. She might read him, but at least he would cut down on the size of the writing.

"Are you ready to speak of what you did after your family died?" Theresa asked.

Harry blinked. "There's lots of things I still can't tell you," he said. "What made Voldemort immortal, for example."

"I didn't mean that, Harry." Theresa shook her head and leaned forward. "I meant, are you ready to speak of what you _felt_, then, what you experienced inside your head and your heart?"

Harry rolled his eyes. He didn't think he could keep his contempt hidden. "Why is that important?"

"Because I believe the origin of most of your problems might lie in that time." Theresa regarded him solemnly. "You maintained a mask of stoicism almost unbroken for eleven years. But you must have started using that mask then. I want to know why. I want to know why you felt you needed to perfect it."

_I won't sound self-pitying. I won't, I won't, I won't. _Harry thought it would be a disgrace to the memory of the Weasleys to sound self-pitying.

"I grieved, of course," he said. "Who wouldn't grieve? But I also knew that I couldn't let the trick work. I couldn't let Voldemort make me despair and give up on fighting him. I didn't know who would take up the quest if I fell. No one else knew as much as I did.

"I got ready to hunt him. I told the Weasleys goodbye—" The scent of smoke seemed to crowd his nostrils, the image of the burned Burrow to rear up in front of him, but he pushed it away. _No self-pity._ "I left that night. I tracked down someone who could help me in the first step of the quest."

"Did you want help, then?" Theresa asked. "I was getting the image of you as the lone hero."

Harry almost smiled. He could hear echoes of Hermione's voice in Theresa's, the scolding way she'd wanted him to go to adults when something bad happened at Hogwarts.

"This person had information I didn't, though he didn't realize why or how the information was important," Harry explained. Mundungus Fletcher had been shocked when Harry hunted him down and demanded to know the location of the locket he'd taken from the Black house, in fact. "So, yes, I did take help when I needed it. Sort of like this," he couldn't help adding. "Once you convinced me that you wouldn't spread my secrets far and wide, I accepted this."

"Grudgingly," said Theresa, staring into his eyes. "I still don't think you're full-heartedly committed to this, Harry."

"I won't lie to you," said Harry. "If I could wake up tomorrow with my grief soothed but my life otherwise exactly the way I left it, I'd return to it without a qualm."

"_Why_?"

Harry shrugged. "I have no one to make me care about connections, about ties," he said simply. "The Weasleys died along with the people who'd cared about me and might have checked up on me if they were all dead. I never returned to Hogwarts. There were—a few people there I could have trusted." His mind was on McGonagall, whom he hadn't seen since the last day of his sixth year. "I'd left my Muggle family behind. My parents were dead, and I never had any siblings. So I did what I had to do alone, and since then I've been alone. It hasn't been bad."

"It's not healthy—"

"For _me_," Harry countered. "And because there was no one else to care about me, there was no one else to be affected by my unhealthiness. Don't you see? At least, even if you're right, I was only hurting one person."

* * *

Draco closed his eyes and shook his head. His emotions were a mixed-up tangle as he listened, part admiration at Harry's determination to keep from hurting others and part fury that he hadn't talked to _someone_, that he hadn't seen that he didn't have to remain distant just because his first friends had died.

He opened his eyes and leaned forward again, staring hard through the enchanted window. Harry was watching Theresa with an expression of faint puzzlement, obviously trying to fathom the motives behind her questions.

_He still doesn't understand. He still doesn't see that we're here to help him and that we actually do care about _him, _not some abstract idea of health, or about winning the game._

And Draco couldn't show Harry the sympathy he wanted for fear of losing the game.

He scowled and folded his arms, tapping his foot on the floor. Perhaps Theresa could make Harry see sense. It certainly sounded as though she was about to try.

* * *

"Is that the real reason you didn't try to make new friends, Harry?" Theresa asked. "Because you feared being hurt again?"

Harry shifted restlessly against the chair. When put like that, it sounded so—so stupid. So much like something a child would do, thinking the world was not cruel enough to find other ways to hurt him, bonds or no bonds.

"No one could replace them," he said stiffly instead. "And no one else cared enough to get to know _me_, not the Boy-Who-Lived. I only had a few masks I could have worn that would make attention-seekers and glory-hounds stop following me. And the stoic mask was the only one that wouldn't involve hurting others." He paused as if considering something. "Well, I suppose I might have become a bitter recluse, but that was less to my taste than Auror."

Theresa didn't look amused. "Most people need others, Harry," she said. "It disturbs me and saddens me that you don't—seem to? That you told yourself you didn't deserve human contact?"

Harry let out a sharp, bitter laugh. "I promise, no thought like that ever crossed my mind. It was the not needing. I had no guarantee that anyone approaching me with his hand out in friendship really wanted friendship and nothing else. And—well, I'd grown used to not needing other people. I could do it. I knew that. So that was what I went back to."

"When did you grow used to not needing other people?"

"My quest."

"A month taught you enough for the rest of your life?" Theresa raised her eyebrows, indicating how much she doubted that.

Harry sighed in irritation. He'd hoped to avoid discussing the Dursleys at all, but he'd also said that he wouldn't lie. "Ten years as a child, too," he admitted grudgingly. "I had no friends when I was a boy. I grew up with an aunt and uncle who feared and distrusted magic, and a cousin my own age who chased the children who could have been my friends away. It prepared me for leaving the Muggle world and becoming a wizard, though," he added, using the cheerful thought he'd tried on himself when he left the Dursleys behind. "And it taught me to survive extended bouts of loneliness, and to live in a world where no one _did_ care about me."

"It seems to me," said Theresa softly, "that you lost the will to make friends when the Weasleys died and wrapped yourself in that cloak of indifference as a defense."

Harry shrugged. "Even if that's right, what does it matter?"

"It matters," said Theresa, "because your mental stability does depend on having at least a rudimentary connection to others, Harry. Would you want to cease working as an Auror, cease to live as a sane man, because you refused an ordinary part of life?"

Harry shrugged again. He could get used to this, he thought, as he watched the frustrated expression on Theresa's face. Perhaps freezing out and obstinacy would work with her as it appeared to be working with Draco; he still didn't know how to cope with Harry's lack of passion towards him. "Some people might say that," he said. "But the only changes I can accept that I experienced in the past few years were physical changes. Not sleeping as much, for example. And did those have anything to do with not having friends? I really don't believe they did."

Theresa sighed and drew her wand. "Do I have your permission to cast a spell on you? It is a complicated one, but it will not hurt you. It simply shows you the state of your relationships to other people."

Harry snorted. "Simply?"

"The state of the part of you that connects to others," said Theresa. "It creates an image. It's called the Soul's Mirror, but I promise, it doesn't actually show your soul." She gave him a sharp smile. "Since you're so reluctant to bare your soul to anyone else, I wouldn't want to subject you to that."

_What does she get out of this? _Harry felt an enormous weariness rising up in him. He'd known the weariness after the battle with the Healers who wanted to help him after Voldemort. He knew it with Draco, too. At least he had a better idea of Draco's motives than Theresa's, though. He had never understood Healers, at least when they wanted to help him and not someone else. He was beginning to believe that whatever debt she owed the Malfoy family could not possibly be enough to compel her to these heights of sacrifice.

He waved a hand when he realized she was still staring at him. "Go ahead."

* * *

Draco was, by now, paying very close attention. He had heard of the Soul's Mirror, but never seen it performed. Apparently Healers used it on young children sometimes, in abuse cases, to try and determine the child's attachment to his possibly abusive parents and how he really felt about them.

Theresa aimed her wand at Harry, and said lowly, "_Speculum animae._"

The spell created a silvery light that drifted around Harry in a sun-like corona. He sat blinking in the middle of it, lifting his hand as if he would shield his eyes from a harsh glow. The light of the spell never grew any brighter, though. It circled Harry slowly—to know him, Draco supposed—and then moved in front of him and formed into a bright mirror.

The mirror had a single green gem of light in the middle of it. That would represent Harry, Draco knew. There was no mistaking the color of his eyes. A thin, misty yellow trail pointed from the green gem in his direction. An even thinner one, orange in color, led towards Theresa.

There was nothing else.

Harry shifted in his seat, but didn't speak. Theresa was the one who leaned forward and whispered, "Judging by this picture of your attachments alone, Harry, I'm astonished that you're not already insane."

Harry's voice descended like a whipcrack into the silence. "Why don't you explain it to me, then? Because what I'm seeing is nothing more than what I'd expect."

Theresa said, "You have an attachment to Draco. He's the closest person to you right now." She let one hand linger on the yellow trail as if afraid of disrupting it. "And you consider yourself bound to me, in a sense of duty or obligation." She nodded to the orange link. "The Soul's Mirror uses colors to measure attachments, the spectrum of the rainbow. The lowest-level bonds are red, and then comes orange, then yellow, then green. And so on. The warmest bonds are violet or indigo. Most people feel those for their families and close friends." She met Harry's eyes. "I've never seen a sane person without at least one bond higher than green," she said bluntly.

"So I'm just different." Harry raised a hand to rub his scar. Draco wondered if he realized how often he did that. "As if that's unusual for me."

"If I hadn't made a promise," Theresa continued, as though he hadn't interrupted, "you would be in St. Mungo's already. I haven't seen people like you, Harry, but I have heard about them. They're considered in imminent danger of suicide."

Draco closed his eyes. He had been right about Harry, then, but he had never thought it would go this far. He'd thought—well, that a few days of sex and yelling would be all it would take. And though he'd told Harry that someone without friends would go mad, he hadn't meant it as literally as Theresa appeared to.

There was a silence during which Draco could hear every heartbeat crushing home like the sound of velvet. Then Harry said, flat and precise, "I suppose you'll tell me that I need to form bonds again to become well?"

"Yes." Theresa's voice was emphatic. "And ideally, though you'll form bonds with other people, it will be Draco you focus most of your attention on. Since you seem to have—let him close to you, for whatever reason, you must pay attention to that link. Strengthen it."

"I'm not gay," Harry snarled, like a mantra.

"I didn't say it had to be a sexual bond." Theresa's emphasis had turned to frustration. Draco fully sympathized. "Friendship. Strive for that. But not—not this freezing out you've tried to do to me, Harry, and which Draco tells me you've practiced on him for the past day. It won't work. Otherwise, the moment you leave the Manor, you'll start sinking again, and we won't be able to help you. Imagine your magic escaping your control, Harry. Imagine the damage it would do." She paused for a long moment. Draco was patting himself on the back for telling her about Harry's changed demeanor in the last day, and how he hadn't been able to figure out what it meant. He'd thought revealing that change could be a bad idea, but not if it helped her learn what one of Harry's major problems was.

"Imagine," said Theresa, "that we have another Dark Lord on our hands, a year from now."

"I wouldn't." Harry's voice was strangled. Draco opened his eyes to see that true fear had twisted his face, though. He was no longer merely angry.

"Why wouldn't you?" Theresa leaned forward. "You have no one to hold you back, Harry, no one to provide you moral or emotional support, no one to help you relax or notice if you've had a bad day. I've studied the little about Tom Riddle that was ever released to the Healers. Who did he have? Whom did he truly let close? No one."

"I let the Weasleys close." Harry curled his shoulders up as if he would strike.

"And they're _dead_," Theresa said. "I can't completely understand your reasoning, Harry. I'm trying. I can't tell if the greatest part of it is based on not wanting to let someone else close and be hurt again, or whether you truly do believe you're protecting others and sparing them a burden by keeping them at a distance. But you went without friendship for ten years, you told me, and now you've gone without it again for another eleven. You're twenty-eight. That leaves seven years of your life when you had someone to care for you, Harry. One of those, you can't remember, and the others are too long ago to help you now. You'll have to _accept_ friendship, if it's offered. Otherwise, what can I do? What can Draco do?"

_Plenty_.

Draco had to admit he hadn't known Harry's problems were this deep or this long-lasting when he first began to obsess over him. But it wasn't just a sexual interest, either, or he would have drugged Harry, coaxed him into a swift fuck, and then abandoned him again, probably under a Memory Charm. He didn't watch someone he just wanted to fuck for two years before approaching him.

He would at least try to make the effort of being Harry's friend, or lover, or companion, or whatever term Harry would finally adopt as applicable. Perhaps he wouldn't be equal to that effort. He'd never done it before, that was certain.

But that it was new, and that it was Harry, was enough to intrigue Draco. Of course, Harry had to permit it in the first place.

Draco looked back at Harry. He was sitting with his eyes closed, as though trying to meditate his problems out of existence. Then he opened his eyes and nodded.

"If I have to." His voice was quiet, resigned.

_Such an enthusiastic beginning, _Draco thought wryly, as he moved to the door of the meeting room. _But I'll wring something stronger out of him soon. And if we don't have at least a green bond in the Soul's Mirror by the end of the month, it won't be my fault. _

He opened the door. Harry turned fierce, half-despairing eyes towards him.

Draco met the gaze with a little shrug. He didn't intend to give up.


	17. The Uncertain Limits of Friendship

Many thanks for the reviews.

_Chapter 17—The Uncertain Limits of Friendship_

"Friends normally do things other than stay in the Manor and play Quidditch together, Harry," Draco said at breakfast the next morning.

Harry stared at him over his porridge and didn't answer. He didn't know how to answer. He'd been feeling a startling mixture of resentment and desperation ever since Theresa released him from the therapy session yesterday.

This was—

This wasn't how he'd envisioned the next few days at the Manor. And every time he thought he had a way to shake himself free of obligation to Draco, the sneaky git turned around and cornered him again. Theresa had decided to help him, and now even _reality_ seemed determined to abet Draco.

Reality, through the Soul's Mirror, said that Harry couldn't just go back to his comfortable life the way he had planned on. And he could even become a Dark Lord.

Harry couldn't express the depths of his dismay at the idea. If there was one thing his life should have preserved him from, it was that. He'd avoided the kind of poisonous ambitions, the desire to surpass natural limits, that had made Voldemort into the monster he was. How could _he_ be a Dark Lord, when he'd kept the emotions that drove his magic under control, when he'd avoided all the temptations that came with fame?

It was horrible, that he'd tried all he could to avoid interacting with the world in a negative fashion, and now it seemed that that very work was undoing him and his promises.

"Harry?"

He looked up and held Draco's eyes. He had to strengthen this bond, Theresa had said, because it was currently the strongest one in his life. Something—his sexual attraction to Draco, his anger at him, or something else entirely—made Harry's barriers part where he was concerned. And he had _no choice._ This had to happen, or he might become suicidal or insane and hurt others.

Harry could not find words to express how much he hated that, either.

"Do you know," Draco said, as if talking to the wall, "I find the way you're glaring at me most discouraging, Harry. I'm giving up my own time to help you. I've indicated that I'm willing to persist, in spite of all the obstacles you're putting in my way. And you're not trying to meet me even halfway. Perhaps I should advise Theresa to take you to St. Mungo's, after all." He laid down his fork and leaned across the table. Harry flinched back; he couldn't help it. He didn't want Draco to touch him. Draco stopped, but his face darkened, and a line settled between his brows. "Let me help you, Harry. Please." The last word was spoken through gritted teeth.

"I—" Harry stopped and closed his eyes, swallowing. "I do want to heal," he said. It was easier when he didn't look at Draco. "I meant that. I said I'd try, and I meant that, too. But that wasn't the purpose you kidnapped me for, Draco. Don't lie to me, even if you're going to lie to yourself."

Draco snorted. Harry peered between half-lowered lids to see an expression of vast amusement on his face.

"Of course it isn't," said Draco. "I did take you for my own selfish purposes. But those have changed now. And if I have to heal you before I can fuck you, that's hardly a sacrifice, Harry." He reached out and leaned his hand on Harry's arm, not stroking, just pressing. Even that felt too good. Harry pulled his arm away by reaching for his cup of orange juice. Draco hissed as his hand smacked flat on the table, but his voice stayed calm, if a bit more forced than before. "Why don't you tell me why you're so afraid of this? It's friendship, not even sex, Harry."

"I don't want to change," Harry told his orange juice. "I still like the person I am, Draco. And this is all about changing me, because the way of life I lived wasn't good enough."

"Of course it wasn't good enough," Draco said. "And while you might have valued it, it's killing you, Harry. I understand that you're afraid. But if you don't change, you'll die—or go mad, and one Dark Lord was quite enough for my lifetime, thank you. So resenting that this is necessary strikes me as useless. It won't make the problem go away, and it won't change my intention to help you."

Harry closed his eyes and sat there in silence. It was really hitting him, for the first time, that when he emerged from Malfoy Manor again, there would be no returning to his flat and his job as they had been. His quiet, peaceful life had been destroyed. He'd taken care of himself and managed quite well for eleven years, but now that lay in pieces on the ground, and Draco and Theresa would smack his hands if he attempted to pick them up again.

He shook his head and stood. Suddenly the walls of the Manor seemed to press in on him, hot and stifling.

Draco's hand caught his wrist. "Where are you going?"

"I have to get out of here." Harry opened one eye and glared. "No, I'm not attempting to go back on the bargain by leaving, Malfoy. I just—I have to fly, or be somewhere else in the open air. I can't stay here."

Draco smiled. It was such an unexpected sight that Harry stared, and nearly missed his words. "Of course we can go somewhere else, Harry. Why didn't you ask? I told you that friends don't just sit in the Manor or fly all the time. I've had invitations arranged for a concert for some time. I thought we would go later, when we knew each other better, but we can go this afternoon."

"The concert's being held this afternoon?" Harry asked doubtfully.

"The concert is held every day." Draco waved his hand airily. "But only those with standing invitations, such as the ones I have, are guaranteed the room to attend." He inclined his head to Harry. "Shall we go?"

Harry hesitated for a moment, wondering if he could wait a few hours for the promise of freedom. In the end, he nodded. It would give him some time to control himself and think about the way he would appear in public.

"Good." Draco stood and switched the grip on his elbow to his wrist. "Now, let me help you choose the robes. Some of those in the wardrobe are only fit for lying around the Manor in, you know."

"Why'd you put them in there, then?" Harry muttered. He knew he ought to be more grateful for Draco's resolve to help him, but every reminder that he didn't know things Draco took for granted told him how utterly unsuited he was for this kind of life.

Draco raised an eyebrow at him. "Because I thought that you would need clothes suitable for all the activities of your new life, Harry, not just attending concerts." He steered him firmly out of the room. "This way."

_Your new life._

Harry wished fervently for the old one for two moments, then shook his head and fell into stride beside Draco. Wishing wouldn't make it so.

* * *

Draco wondered if Harry had considered what kind of splash they would make, arriving together at one of Mrs. Parkinson's fashionable concerts. There was the fact that Draco had a new lover, of course, or so it would seem to those familiar with his habits. There was the fact that his friends would at once become aware that he'd caught Harry.

And for those who might recognize him, there was the fact that the hero of the wizarding world was at Draco Malfoy's side.

Draco had arranged to attend this concert because, although outside the Manor, it didn't truly count as a public venture. Those who might recognize Harry would keep it quiet and far from the ears of the Ministry, or the St. Mungo's staff, who for all they knew still had a comatose Harry Potter in their care. But they would discuss, and they would speculate, and narrowed eyes would follow Draco wherever he went from now on in this small social circle, gauging his prestige and wondering what game he was playing.

Draco enjoyed it all. He knew that Harry likely wouldn't care for such games, or even be disgusted with them. He didn't care. He was deriving some benefits from Harry's presence in his life, the way Harry was from Draco's presence in his. Given what he was working through for Harry, Draco thought he deserved such small considerations as these.

Mrs. Parkinson's conservatory was in the upper room of a large, Unplottable house that her family owned in London. It was open to the sky, though spells clustered invisibly about the windows, insuring that no sudden gust of wind intruded, and that the air was always comfortably warm, no matter the weather. The walls were a white that shaded into a pale green or rose here and there, offering a cool, reserved atmosphere and never distracting attention from the latest musical prodigy Mrs. Parkinson had discovered and set up here.

Draco handed his cloak and Harry's to the house-elf who came to meet them. Bussy accepted them with a dignified bow, and then vanished with them, so softly that Draco heard no crack. He smiled. Someday, Trippy might attain Bussy's level of calm and refined service, but he would not look for it soon. Bussy had been in service to the Parkinson family for more than a hundred years, and Trippy wasn't even thirty yet.

"Draco! How pleasant of you to come, my dear. I know you said you were working on a new project and might be away some time."

Draco turned to accept Gardenia Parkinson's hand and kiss it. Pansy's mother was half a generation older than Narcissa, which might, Draco thought, account for her greater poise. Draco had never seen her lose her temper, not once. Her honey-colored hair hung loose and perfumed around a calm face whose tiniest expression was important. Her eyes were large and blue, commanding. Though she had her daughter's unfortunate pug-face, her other features made up for it, as did the air she projected, that invisible assurance that well-bred people would _never_ mention another's ugliness behind her back. Draco sometimes regretted that Pansy hadn't been the mother and Gardenia the daughter; they would have made a happy and politically devastating marriage, he was certain.

His gaze slid sideways to Harry, and he straightened with a faint smile. Well, they might have done, but he wasn't sure that even Gardenia could have kept him attached once he came to know Harry.

"My projects tend to take me less time in isolation than I think they will, ma'am," he said. "I long for the sound of sweet voices and the sight of fair faces much sooner than I believed I would when I began. And, of course, it helped that my latest lover has agreed to come along for this afternoon."

Gardenia turned towards Harry, cocking her head. Draco was certain she knew who he was even before Draco began the introduction, though the missing glasses and charmed-away lightning bolt scar might have slowed her a bit. Gardenia had an amazing memory for faces—once seen, never forgotten.

"Gardenia Parkinson, meet Harry Potter," Draco murmured, deliberately keeping his voice down. They were already receiving curious looks. He didn't feel like indulging that curiosity. "Harry, Gardenia Parkinson. Mother of Pansy Parkinson, of course."

"Of course." To his credit—or the credit of the Ministry functions that he had to attend, perhaps—Harry sounded perfectly composed as he kissed Gardenia's hand in turn. Gardenia pretended so well to perfect delight that she might really have felt it.

"I have so longed to meet you, Mr. Potter," Gardenia said, and gave a little half-bow, just her neck tilting down. "I can't tell you how much I admired your skill as Gryffindor Seeker during the one Hogwarts Quidditch match I found time to attend while Pansy was still in school. It's not often that a natural talent such as yours comes along. You have practiced since then, I hope?"

"Ah—not really," Harry said, blinking. Draco knew why. He'd expected some reference to Voldemort, and been thrown off completely by Gardenia's method of attack. Draco hid a smile. Mrs. Parkinson rarely did the expected. "I've been an Auror since my seventeenth year. That leaves little time for Quidditch."

"Well, I'm certain you defend our world as brilliantly." Another half-bow, and Gardenia turned to welcome a new guest.

Draco escorted Harry with a hand on his back to a seat in the middle of the front row of chairs. Eyes darted after them as they went, and tongues wagged, but Harry didn't seem to notice. Nor did he take notice of the position Draco's hand was in. It sent a clear claiming message to the rest of the room. Draco did catch one too-interested gaze, from some flitting butterfly of a woman who was probably an acquaintance of Pansy's, and looked at her coldly enough that she blushed and stopped drooling over Harry.

"She's a bit—overwhelming," Harry voiced, once they were seated.

Draco nodded. "That's her. If Pansy had been like that, she would have done a lot better in our social circles than she has." He looked forward. It appeared that Mrs. Parkinson's latest discovery was a harpist. A tall harp sat shimmering in the middle of the floor, at least, and Draco could see a woman peering from a curtain at the side of the room, a witch with silvery robes and so many ribbons in her hair it looked as though she'd robbed a haberdashery.

"I barely remember Pansy," Harry said, in distraction, and lapsed into silence. Draco let him. He had something to think about. Draco would let him think it. Besides, it was a bit exhausting to concentrate on Harry all the time.

A few people looked as if they might approach them, but the music began first, the beribboned witch walking out to take her place at the harp at a subtle signal from Gardenia. Draco knew that she gave such a signal, but he had never managed to see it, though he always looked. It seemed, instead, as if the musician simply floated out and sat down at her harp, hands carefully arranged.

There came a few moments when those still drifting around the room scrambled for their seats.

Gardenia announced the harpist, whose name was apparently Melinda Moonsong—an assumed name, of course, Draco knew, since there was no family named Moonsong in the surrounding area, and Gardenia wouldn't have selected a commoner, no matter how outstanding the talent.

Melinda began to play.

* * *

Harry frowned and shook his head. If Mrs. Parkinson could recognize him and yet not react with fawning or mockery, did that mean that he might be able to go out in public sometimes and not need to hide at home?

_Wait. When did I begin to think of it as hiding, instead of something I want to do?_

And then the music swept in and stole all his thoughts away.

Harry had never cared much for harp music, or music in general. If someone asked him, he might have shrugged and said that a harp sounded all right, if he could distinguish it from a lute or any other stringed instrument.

He had never been in the presence of someone truly talented, and so he had never known that music could affect him like light.

His eyes shut, and he found himself sitting up, leaning towards Draco; Draco was slightly closer to the harp. Draco's arm curved around his shoulders and supported him. Just this once, Harry didn't mind it. He wanted to listen.

The song plucked at him, ripples of warmth that traveled up his spine and through his belly. In his mind, he saw light likewise glinting and rippling, a serene lake in sunshine. The depth of the song revealed the reflections of trees drifting in the water, and the sudden cascade of paler notes that followed the dark cadences called Harry's heart after them. He lost the image of the pool and the trees, but it didn't matter, because the song was already creating new ones.

He tried to remember the last time he had listened to music for its own sake. He couldn't remember it. Wormwood usually kept the WWN on, but Harry found the songs a distraction at best. Who _cared_ about some silly singer's broken heart when there was work to be done?

And then there was this.

The music soared and dived, and his mood soared and dived after it. The composer could have been thinking of light when she wrote this, or forests, or a broken heart after all. Harry didn't know, and he didn't really care. What mattered was the way that the music fractured in his ears, the way it influenced his mind.

He forgot about work entirely, listening to this. He forgot about his resentment over changing his life. He forgot about his problems with Draco. There was the song, and the darkness behind his eyelids, and the pictures that sported there, and nothing else.

He had never known he enjoyed music.

He returned to earth as the song ended in a chorus of light notes. When he opened his eyes, the harpist was standing and bowing. Harry brought his hands together as the others began to applaud.

He was aware from the stares that his clapping was probably loud enough to be considered uncouth. He didn't care. That song deserved it.

Besides, Draco was smirking at him as if this were perfectly all right. His smirk disappeared, though, when Harry turned to him and said, not considering the words before he spoke them, "_Thank _you."

Just before he turned back to the harpist again, Harry thought the smirk had become a smile.


	18. Many Small Ideas

_Chapter 18—Many Small Ideas_

"Thank you," Harry repeated, as he and Draco left Mrs. Parkinson's house. He didn't know what else he could say that would express his gratitude to Draco for taking him there. He'd gone up to the harpist and spoken to her, of course; he wouldn't have felt courteous if he hadn't. But then, he would never have come and heard her at all if it weren't for Draco.

"You're quite welcome, Harry." Draco's voice was quiet, and if it had a tone of amusement in it, it was of a kind Harry could live with. "I believe that you're thankful for it. You don't need to keep repeating yourself."

Harry flushed and ducked his head, sliding his hands into the pockets of his robes. He knew it probably wasn't proper wizarding posture, but then, he'd never felt that much at ease in formal situations. Most people who met him there seemed to assume that a hero should know how to behave with proper politeness, and were more than a little offended when exposed to Harry's clumsy, human self. His manners had improved out of sheer self-defense, but he knew he'd never truly be up to the standards of a woman like Gardenia. That needed knowledge that, if not inborn, had at least been trained into people like Draco and Pansy Parkinson from birth.

His mood darkened again, and he wondered if Draco had thought about this consequence of being with him.

"What is it?" Draco hadn't even looked at him, but Harry could hear the mild exasperation in his tone. "What have you found to fret about now?"

"Draco," Harry said, and tried to think how he could phrase it gently. Then he decided that Draco hardly needed gentleness. He was the one who had kidnapped Harry out of his comfortable life and into this one. He could deal with Harry's honesty. "Has it occurred to you that people aren't going to think I'm good enough for you?"

Draco stopped dead and turned to face him. His face was astonished. Harry studied him, and wondered why in the world this hadn't occurred to him.

"I would say it would be the other way around," Draco said. "People won't think I'm good enough for you, Harry."

Harry shook his head violently. "That might have been true nine or ten years ago, Draco, but it's not now," he said. "You still have a privileged place in society, and I—don't." He shrugged, unable to think of another way to express it. "I don't know how to behave. I'll continually embarrass you. And I know that you value social currency. Have you thought about what it's going to cost you to be with me?"

Draco studied him in intent silence. Harry frowned back. He couldn't _believe_ that Draco hadn't anticipated this, but it seemed he truly hadn't.

"Why, Harry," Draco said, and his voice had gone back to a relaxed drawl. "Is that a sign of _concern_ I see?"

Harry flushed.

"I think it is," Draco said. His smile was smug. "And I'm very glad to see it, mind. I think Theresa is right. As you emerge from your isolated little shell, caring for others is going to become second nature to you again."

Harry wanted to deny that, but he couldn't. During the period of his life he supposed was most "normal," his years in Hogwarts, he'd cared deeply about Ron and Hermione, and the Weasleys. His love might be limited, but it was deep.

The problem, of course, was that he didn't want to think of that period as normal, and the rest of his life as a failure. He hadn't had anything to do with his rescue by the wizarding world; it was luck that he'd been born a wizard, and his mother's sacrifice that had made his name famous there. He hadn't brought himself out of the Dursleys' house, and he hadn't brought himself out of grieving for his friends as successfully as he'd once believed, either.

It was just bloody _infuriating_. Even assuming that Theresa and Draco were right and he needed to heal, why couldn't he have figured that out and changed on his own? Harry enjoyed being self-sufficient. He hated having to depend on others. Maybe he could—care—for Draco, but being protected was—

"Out of the question," he muttered.

"What was that?" Draco asked sharply.

Harry started to answer, and then took in the curious gazes of the rest of the people coming out of the conservatory. "Not here," he said, and took Draco's arm. "Apparate us back inside Malfoy Manor. I have something to talk to you about."

Draco gave him a long, miffed look, but in the end, Side-Along Apparated him back through the Manor's wards. Harry closed his eyes and was glad, even though Side-Along travel, as usual, made him sick to his stomach. He didn't want to go through a crisis in front of people he didn't trust.

Which, of course, led to the conclusion that he did trust Draco.

Harry shoved that conclusion away violently. It was just too strange.

* * *

Draco had no idea what had got Harry's feathers all in a rustle, but he did know it probably wasn't a good idea to take them back inside four walls right now, not when Harry had expressed an interest earlier in going outside. So he took them to the Manor's gardens, a part a long way from the bower where he'd first taken Harry when he captured him. They landed in the middle of an orchard neatly arranged as tended rows of apple trees, the grass between them cut short and soft, magic invoking mingled seasons from them. Here and there ripe fruit hung; here and there it ripened; here and there blossoms swayed on the stalks.

It had been the right choice, Draco saw, when he let Harry's arm go. Harry breathed in the clean air and seemed to relax. The hand he raised to rake through his hair shook only a little.

"Now," said Draco. "_Tell_ me." Harry was the only person he knew who could go from listening to harp music in an atmosphere as relaxed as the one inside Gardenia's conservatory to twitching with tension in three minutes flat.

"I don't like that you had to rescue me," said Harry sullenly, keeping his head bowed. "I've accepted that you were right, by the way, so you can rejoice in that." He wandered towards a tree bright with fruit and plucked an apple, biting into it. Draco thought it was more to have something to do than because he was hungry, but even that was heartening, in its way. The Harry he'd learned through his observation of the past few years would simply have plunged silently back into more work, instead of seeking out food. "Something has to change. But why couldn't I have recognized that by myself, and done something about it by myself?" His voice rang with wistfulness.

Draco leaned on the tree next to him. This particular one had been his grandfather's pride and joy, to hear his mother tell of it. It stood taller than the others, with brighter, crisper fruit. Draco picked an apple for himself, and closed his eyes to savor the crunch and the tangy taste for a long moment before he replied. "Why would you have wanted to do something about it by yourself?"

"Because I prefer not to _owe_ people things." Harry turned around and regarded him solemnly over the top of his apple. His eyes were greener than the grass. Draco knew that was a sort of soppy, wistful comparison, but he didn't care; it was true. "I owe you for helping me, and Theresa, too. I wish I didn't."

Draco lowered his apple and took a long step forward. "If that's the only thing you feel for me, then this friendship will fail before it's begun, Harry."

"Of course it's not the only thing." Harry tossed his head the way he did when dismounting from a broom. "You're too exasperating for that. But it is something that I wish wasn't there. I wish I could have pulled myself out of this hole on my own, and met you under better circumstances." He stared down at the grass as if it held the answers.

Draco blinked. "So you would still have preferred to meet me than not?"

Harry froze like a trapped rabbit. "I," he said eloquently, and nothing else.

Draco took a step towards him. Harry didn't retreat. He just stood still, as if uncertain what came next after admitting feelings of concern and friendship for someone else. And God knew Draco didn't want to press or rush him, not when this confession by itself was a sign of Harry's swiftly changing feelings.

But he couldn't keep from pursuing it, either. He was starting to think that Theresa was wrong about Harry in at least one respect. She thought it would take him months to change. But she'd never seen Harry in school, or, for that matter, thought about what it meant that Harry had destroyed Voldemort inside a month after the Weasley Massacre. When he went after something, he went after it with his whole heart. Draco just hadn't thought their connection would be one of those things.

"I don't consider you my debtor, Harry," he said quietly. "Never that. My motives for taking you were selfish, remember? The anger I feel towards you comes from your stupidity in sinking your emotions and living like an automaton in the first place. I'll never demand you do something because you _owe_ it to me, unless you give me your word that you will, like this bargain we have."

Harry stared at him. Draco stared back. They stared at each other. The silence stretched, until Harry broke it with a shout that caused the apple blossoms to sway and dance against each other.

"_Why_?"

"Why what?" Draco took a bite of his apple to show how very startled he wasn't, though his heart was banging against his rib cage.

"Why the fuck do you care about me so much?" Harry sat down and wrapped his arms around his head as though to shelter from the world. His words were muffled, but Draco could understand them. "Why have you taken up this burden in the first place? I don't understand it. No one does this, Draco, just watches someone for two years and then scoops him up and tries to heal him. You're mad."

"Not so mad as all that," said Draco. "And as for why, I've questioned it enough times since I became obsessed, and my mother and my friends did the same thing. The answer is that there is no answer. I want you near me. I want to help you. I want you, plain and simple." He took another bite of his apple. By now, he'd carved his way nearly to the core.

Harry shook his head and looked up. "If Ron or Hermione was doing this, I'd know why," he said. "But not you. I don't understand you."

Draco sat down across from him; Harry looked as though he'd panic and move away if Draco came nearer. "Trying to understand it will stress you, and I can't give you a better answer than I have, not right now," he said. "Isn't it enough that I _will_ help you, and that you're starting to be concerned about me in return?"

"I can't help that," Harry said as if it were a fault. "I don't think that you really know what you're doing, Draco, what taking in the Hero of the Wizarding World like a lost pet is going to do to your social life." He spoke his title with a sneer that made it obvious how much he hated it.

Draco felt his shoulders relax. _Yes, he's worried about me. If he can't admit it easily, that's his problem. But at least I can reassure him. That's something friends do for each other. _"I know it perfectly well, Harry," he said. "If I wasn't willing to risk this, I would never have snared you in the first place. And if you did want social cachet, you would be surprised how many people are willing to give you the time of day, once you make it clear that you want it."

Harry eyed him sideways. "I don't want it."

Draco debated letting that rest—he wasn't Theresa—but he was curious about the answer himself. "Why not?" he asked. "I understand that flattery and the rest of it doesn't appeal to you, but you didn't want even honest gratitude. You don't seem to feel any pride that you saved the _whole world_, Harry. Why?"

Harry sighed and touched his scar. "Because it wasn't me," he said simply. "My mother's sacrifice protected me when I was a baby. Voldemort was after me at all only because of a prophecy, and he didn't even know the whole thing. So it was all—coincidence. Chance. Fate, and accidents of fate." He shrugged. "Anyone could have been in my place. In fact, Neville Longbottom almost was."

"You _have_ to be lying," Draco said, appalled, and took a bite of his apple. He felt faint, and obviously needed food to revive him. _Longbottom, the Hero of the Wizarding World. No. He's joking. _So far as Draco was concerned, only Harry belonged in that position; only Harry should occupy it.

"I'm not. We were both born at the end of July, and that's all the part of the prophecy that Voldemort overheard demanded." Harry gave him an exhausted smile that Draco suspected was a good deal more honest than the emotionless masks he'd seen so much of. "You see? Accident. All of it. So much could have been different. But it wasn't." He clenched one hand into a fist. "And now you're asking me to give up control of my life. Again. When I was sure that I'd finally achieved it."

Draco fumbled for words. Finally, he said. "That kind of control isn't worth having, Harry."

"Maybe not, maybe not next to what I had when the Weasleys were alive," Harry murmured in distraction, his hand sweeping the ground. His head was bowed, so Draco knew he didn't see the expression of exaltation Draco could feel taking over his own features. _He's finally admitting it. _"But it was the only thing worth having when they were dead."

Draco took a deep breath. He didn't _like_ what he was about to do. It put part of himself at risk, and there was no guarantee that he would get something in return. He felt more comfortable being vulnerable with one of his Slytherin friends, because there, his vulnerability was always calculated; he knew he was taking a risk to earn a higher prize. He had no idea what Harry, Gryffindor but in self-denial for the past decade, would do with his words.

"And now?" he asked. "Now that you have a chance at friendship and that higher good again? Will you accept it, even though it _is_ me and not the people you made friends with in Hogwarts who's offering?"

Harry's head snapped up, and his eyes locked with Draco's in a moment of intense eye contact that was also intensely uncomfortable. Draco kept himself from wriggling by equally intense application of the lessons in poise he'd learned. When he was sure that neither of them would turn away in embarrassment in the next few moments, he extended his hand.

Memory after memory rode that gesture—the way his father had taught him to greet visiting dignitaries while he was still a child, the gesture Harry had rejected when they were both eleven, the way he'd put out his left arm for Voldemort to Mark. Draco didn't let his hand shake and betray him, though. Those moments were not this moment, and both Voldemort and his father were dead.

In front of him was the man he was obsessed with, the man he thought he might fall in love with if he had, and took, the chance.

Harry studied him for moments that made Draco's eyes ache and his hand long to tremble with weariness. But he didn't move. He just kept reaching, and finally Harry's hand rose and took his own.

From Harry's wistful smile, Draco knew that at least one of his memories was shared. Then Harry nodded, and met his gaze again, and Draco could see that he was scared out of his wits. But Harry had been a Gryffindor, and since then, a trained Auror. Fear didn't truly register.

"All right," he whispered. "Let's do this thing." He jerked hard, standing in the same moment, and Draco found himself on his feet. Harry leaned close, staring into his eyes all the while.

Then he whispered into Draco's ear, "Your mother's been watching us from the edge of the garden for a few minutes."

Draco kept himself from stiffening with a supreme effort, and went with his second instinct, laughing and shaking his head, as though Harry had made a joke. "How did you see her?"

"She's not that subtle compared to some Dark wizards I've tracked." Harry tilted his head. "Do you think she'll try to separate us?"

_Us_. Draco savored the word, though he had better sense than to show he was doing it. "Probably," he admitted. "She's actively disapproved of my 'chasing' you, as she prefers to call it."

Harry's eyes fired with determination, and Draco knew he'd said the exact right thing. Harry himself had claimed that he did best when he had something to fight.

"I say that we don't let that happen, Draco." Harry leaned forward again. "How should we fight her?"

Draco felt as though the sunshine in the garden had entered his mind, which was soppy and sentimental, but there he was, thinking in soppy and sentimental metaphors while his Gryffindor friend asked for advice about defying his mother.

"I have an idea," he began.


	19. Is There Such a Thing

Thanks again for the reviews!

_Chapter 19—Is There Such a Thing As Too Much Smugness?_

Draco took breakfast with his mother in the morning, not something he often did. He could feel the suspicion radiating from Narcissa's direction the moment he sat down next to her, gave her a dazzling smile, and called for tea. Trippy popped up with a steaming cup immediately, of course, done just the way he liked it. Draco took a sip and closed his eyes in pleasure.

"Is there something wrong, Draco?" Narcissa's voice was the sound of perfection. Draco could hear the flaws under the surface, though. He wondered if he could hear them better because he'd become used to listening for them since he became obsessed with Harry, or if Harry's presence itself rattled her enough to sound strained.

"Of course not," he said, and leaned over to kiss her on the cheek. "I simply realized that I've spent very little time with you lately, my dear mother. And I wanted to correct that."

"Really." Narcissa sipped her own tea, never taking her eyes from him. She hadn't reacted to the kiss, either.

"Yes." Draco turned away from her, as if to hide the disappointed expression he'd let his face fall into. She sat up, though. He _did_ make sure to hide his smile.

"Draco." She sounded concerned for him. She was good at that. Draco had even believed it once—or maybe that concern had been real when he was still young enough to do himself an injury. She'd gone to Severus and made the man swear an Unbreakable Vow to protect him, after all. But every piece of evidence argued that since he'd become an adult, she considered him not only able but obligated to look after himself, which included finding a suitable wife to settle down with. "Is something wrong? Has something changed?"

Draco put down the scone he'd started to pick up. "Yes," he said. "I should have listened to you, Mother."

"About what?" Her hand settled on his, light as an early winter snowfall. "What has happened?"

"Harry." Draco gave her a plaintive look. "Having him here destroys the dream. I thought the person I saw from a distance was the _real_ one. And now that he's close to me, I realize that he has—" He waved a hand in the air, then said emphatically, "_Flaws._ No manners. No appreciation for what it would mean for someone like me to be with someone like him. It's no good, Mother. I can try to imagine him as the perfect partner for me, but he isn't, and never will be." He sat back, folding his arms over his chest, and pouted.

Narcissa practically purred. She knew how to deal with him when he was like this, Draco knew. He'd been like this until he was twenty, and then a few spectacular fights when he tried to assert his independence had begun his mother's coolness towards him. She crooned, though, to let him know how sorry she was, and how much it hurt her to see her son hurting. "What are you going to do with him, Draco? You can't simply cast him out, of course, not when you put so much effort into bringing him here, and not when you took him to Gardenia's concert yesterday." A shade of coolness there; she had never approved of that part of Draco's plan.

Draco sighed, and leaned his cheek on his hand. "I was thinking a strong _Obliviate_ would do it," he said. "But of course I can't _Obliviate_ everyone who was at Mrs. Parkinson's concert." He threw up his hands, and then leaned back and looked at her. "I thought you might have some advice, Mother."

"Of course I do. Mothers always do." Narcissa gave him a fleeting smile, and for a moment, Draco could think he was a child again, to be bathed in the warmth of her protectiveness. But she thought more of manipulating him than watching over him now. "I would suggest that you encourage him—subtly—to retreat into his emotionless shell, Draco. He lived that way for years before you happened along. He'll live that way just fine after you send him off again. His life is, and should be, no concern of yours."

Draco's skin crawled, even though he had been sure that she would suggest that. And had he really wanted to drop Harry, that would have worked. Harry's trust was so fragile right now, so dependent. He could have fractured it and sent Harry back into being the work-addicted Auror so _easily_.

Just then, Harry entered the breakfast room from the far side, and paused, eyes wide and confused. "Draco," he said. "Trippy told me that you were here. She didn't say that you were eating with your mother." His eyes darted back and forth, as if he were begging for guidance.

Narcissa even gave him a warm smile, or at least a smile with no unusual coldness in it, which from her was practically an embrace. "I don't mind you joining us, Harry," she said, and sat back, gesturing for him to come forward. Draco knew why she'd done that. She was making it easy for him. He could be cold to Harry, and she would be warm, the perfect hostess who strove to make amends for her ungrateful son and let Harry down gently, while simultaneously making sure Harry had absolutely no expectation of Draco's feelings ever again.

And Draco would take that opportunity, according to the plan he'd worked out with Harry yesterday.

But Harry was the one who would prove unexpectedly stubborn, and refuse to play his proper role.

* * *

Harry had lingered outside the breakfast room listening to Draco and Narcissa talk. He had known in advance what the content of the conversation would be, if not the exact wording. Draco had told him what he intended to do, after all, and he had managed to very neatly predict his mother's behavior.

But hearing it had—

It had hurt, and Harry had no idea why.

Or, well, yes, he did, if he were honest with himself, and it cost him nothing to be honest with himself inside his own head, where no one else could hear him. Draco played the part too well. He sounded alternately bored and frustrated with Harry, and full of those same anxieties Harry had been sure would plague him. They were of two different worlds, and he couldn't fit into Draco's. His mind knew it and admired it for the magnificent performance it was.

But what his _ears_ had heard was the only person he could really count a friend in the world declaring that he had no interest in him, or that his interest had been mistaken, and the friendship embarrassed him.

Draco was important to him, God knew why, and Harry had felt about two inches tall while listening.

But he had years of Auror training behind him, and careful acting lessons to make suspects think one thing of him when another was true, and so he wavered in and made his eyes and voice waver, too. Narcissa welcomed him, just as Draco had said she would, and left the ground open for Draco to deny his interest.

He did it perfectly. His eyes narrowed, and he gave a polished sneer that cut into Harry. That was when Harry knew this friendship was real, and he barely kept himself from scowling. He had faced sneers like that from people he was indifferent to without a qualm. But put one on Draco's face, and suddenly his insides were twisted up and he ached in an imitation of the way he'd often felt when he was fighting with Ron or Hermione.

_An imitation only. It's nothing with him like it was with them. _Harry told himself that firmly, and listened to Draco's words, as he'd been instructed, while sipping his tea with the manners of a wild boar.

"It seems you were right after all, Harry," Draco said, with politeness that could not hide the sneer. "I should have left you alone in the life you believed was so perfect. I'm sorry to say that our interests haven't coincided. I'll make arrangements to return you to that life." He eyed Harry's tea and shuddered, making no disguise of how disgusted he was by Harry's slurping.

Harry fought the impulse to set the cup down and apologize. That was _not_ the point of this charade, damn it. The point was to blame Harry, to make Narcissa think he was the instigating party in the friendship, and then to embarrass her completely when she was certain of and acted on that assumption.

"No, thanks," he said, and if the cheerfulness in his voice was hollow, Narcissa's stare was worth it. He picked up a scone and deliberately slapped a squelching, obscene amount of butter on it. "I find that I like the high life. I'm not ready to give up this taste of it yet." He bit into the scone, making butter roll down his face, and winked cheekily at Draco.

Draco didn't respond. Harry, concerned, was about to ask through the mouthful of food what was wrong when he realized that Draco was staring, obsessed, at his lips and tongue. Harry nearly growled. _Of all the times for him to think about sex! Come on, Draco, focus!_

Whether it was his glare or the moments passing, Harry never knew, but Draco did snap out of it and clear his throat, though his cheeks had flushed a light and becoming pink—no, it was just a light pink, Harry thought, determined. "That's not your choice, Harry," he said, actually shoving his chair back with enough force to make it clatter. "I was the one who brought you here, and I'm the one who's going to send you back."

"Now, Draco," Narcissa said, placatingly. She thought she and Draco were in a conspiracy against him, Harry knew, not the other way around, or at least she should if their plan was working, and it seemed to be. "I'm sure that Mr. Potter didn't mean—"

"Of course I did," Harry said, interrupting his hostess. Narcissa darted him a scandalized look. He absolutely ignored her. If he were playing true to character, of course, he wouldn't even notice his breach of propriety. "I'm not going anywhere until I'm damn good and ready. And yes, Malfoy, I know about the _Obliviate_ you could use on me, and I have charms against that," he added, in a patronizing fashion. "Meanwhile, how much do you think the _Prophet_ would pay for the story of how the Malfoy heir kidnapped the Hero of the Wizarding World and tried to make him into a sexual playtoy? Against his will, no less? And watched him for two years, enough to prove his obsession if anything does?"

Draco's eyes widened.

"_Mr. Potter—_" Narcissa began.

"You wouldn't," Draco hissed, leaning forward. This close, Harry could see the glint of laughter hidden in his eyes. That reassured him as nothing else could have done. This friendship wasn't a fluke, and Draco's hateful words really had just been part of the game they were playing with Narcissa. Harry felt immensely better.

"Wouldn't I?" Harry bit into his scone again, never looking away from Draco's eyes, never giving up the challenge. He could feel the flaring heat there, and the tug low in his belly. He told himself this was no time for _him_ to be thinking of sex, either, and didn't let the flush color his cheeks. "I have the story written already, Draco, and a certain reporter named Rita Skeeter who's never completely lost interest in me. She does a piece on me every year for the anniversary of Voldemort's defeat. Give me an excuse, just one, and that story is away to her faster than you can say _Obliviate._"

"I didn't realize you had such a strong attachment to Malfoy Manor, Harry." Draco lifted his chin and lowered his voice. "Or is it _me_ that you have such a strong attachment to? What would Skeeter say if she knew that, yes, I tried to make a toy of the Hero of the Wizarding World—and he _likes_ it?"

Harry's eyes went to Draco's mouth. He told himself to ignore that. "Keep dreaming, Malfoy," he murmured, and felt his bored tone was worthy of a prize. "I have a taste for high life, not you. But I deserved a holiday, and you're not going to drive me away from this one before I'm damn good and ready."

"Money and power can make many things happen, Harry." Draco pulled condescension off perfectly, damn and bless him. "I'm sure that we could offer you—something—to persuade you to seek your holiday elsewhere."

"_Draco_," Narcissa hissed. Harry wondered if she was more offended at the mention of bribery, or the crude way in which it was offered.

"Magic makes more things happen." Harry took another impolite bite of his breakfast. "Or had you forgotten that I'm the most powerful wizard in Britain, Malfoy?" He laid his scone down. "Shall I remind you?"

The table rose from the floor. Meanwhile, his scone rose along with it, and then began performing a looping dance around the table, orbiting it and moving towards Narcissa as it did so.

Harry kept his eyes locked with Draco's, and so saw the flare of surprise deep within them. Harry had said that he would put on a show. He had never mentioned that it would be wandless magic, or that he would do this much of it. In truth, it was draining, but Harry knew how to conceal signs of that strain. He'd done it before to frighten a few cowards into surrendering.

He hadn't expected the flare of arousal that followed the surprise. Draco appraised him the way a starving man would appraise a loaf of bread. His hand twitched. Harry knew he was a second from reaching forward, gripping the back of Harry's head, and pulling him into a deep kiss.

_And why do I know that so well? Focus on friendship, first, Harry, and not sex. _Harry shook his head as if to clear it, and then let the table and the scone settle back into place. He thought it particularly neat that, while he set the table down in the exact same indentations its legs had made in the carpet, the scone fell into his hand. He swallowed the last bite and studied Draco, waiting for his reaction.

Draco's face twitched, and he glanced at his mother. Narcissa inclined her head a fraction. Harry could read that, even though he hadn't grown up around her: leave it for now. They would confront Harry later.

"Fine, then," Draco said coldly. "As long as you understand that you're no longer welcome here." He strode out of the breakfast room.

Harry made a point of staying and eating, while Narcissa made all the appropriate soothing noises to him: she was sorry her son was such a brat, she hoped that Harry would come to some arrangement agreeable to them both, fitting into high society could be so confusing, Draco had always seen and gone after what he wanted without considering the consequences, he was very like his father that way…

Harry just barely kept himself from snorting over that last one. Draco had planned and plotted Harry's abduction and healing for over two years. Who did Narcissa think she was talking about?

But as soon as he could, he excused himself and followed in Draco's wake. He had to see and talk to him without masks between them.

Because he _had_ to.

* * *

Draco wasn't surprised when Harry knocked on his bedroom door an hour later. He had expected the visit. The deception had gone off well, but they needed time to see and talk to each other without it. As Harry entered, Draco waved his wand and cast a glamour that would make it sound, should Narcissa attempt to listen in, that they were shouting at each other.

He knew his first question probably wasn't what Harry had expected, but he _had_ to know.

"Was that magic you performed really wandless?"

Harry paused, still halfway across the room, and regarded him. "It was," he said, and then his resolve firmed. "And I _know_ that you liked it, you wanker. I was looking into your eyes, you know."

Draco shrugged and gave him a lazy smile. "What can I say? I prefer my partners powerful."

Harry flushed a bit, but still sat down on the bed beside him, which Draco knew he wouldn't have done if he were truly uncomfortable. "What do you think?" he asked. "Did we fool her?"

Draco smirked and nodded. "Yes, we did. She believes I want you gone, and that the fault is yours. I'll be the apple of her eye for a time again, her darling little boy, but she'll be gracious to you, the interloper, so that she can continue to keep up her reputation and look blameless to you. A more pleasant time for both of us, but we have to snipe at each other on the surface." He cocked his head. "Can you do that?"

Harry leaned back and scoffed. "Of course I can."

But Draco wasn't so sure. He'd seen the expression on Harry's face at a few points during their "conflict." He'd flinched now and then, as if he couldn't believe that his new friend would turn against him. It was enough to make Draco wonder if this plan was such a great idea after all.

"_Everything_ I say in front of her is for the sake of the game," Draco said now, and leaned in to clasp Harry's hand again, as he had yesterday. "Remember that, Harry." He wanted to hold him, but Harry would probably resist. Besides, he had a session with Theresa in a few hours, and he didn't need to enter it stressed.

Harry slowly nodded. The charged feeling between them was growing again, and Draco found it hard to look away from Harry. He didn't mind that, though.

_When we finally have sex, it's going to be spectacular._

But, in the meantime, Draco was enjoying having Harry as a friend nearly as much as he expected to enjoy Harry as a lover.


	20. Breakthrough

Thanks again for the comments and reviews here! This is such a fun little story, and part of the fun is knowing that other people enjoy it.

_Chapter 20—Breakthrough_

"This is excellent, Harry." Theresa smiled at him from beyond the glow of the Soul's Mirror spell. "The bond you have with Draco has strengthened to green. If you keep paying attention to it, I don't see any reason for you not to have normal friendships when you leave Malfoy Manor." She waved her wand and banished the shimmering image.

Harry nodded curtly. Funny. He had felt perfectly relaxed that morning, with Draco, at least once he had heard that the game with Narcissa really was just a game. But now he could feel his muscles tensing, though Theresa moved and spoke slowly. He trusted the Healer to be a Healer and follow her own instincts in trying to help him. He didn't trust her to let him progress at his own pace, as Draco seemed to be willing to.

The thought that _Draco Malfoy_, of all people, was the one in the world he most trusted was a bit stare-worthy, but Harry had other things to think about. Theresa was speaking again.

"Have you considered what's going to happen when you leave Malfoy Manor?"

Harry realized he had folded his arms a moment after he folded them. _Damn it. _He didn't mean to use such defensive body language. He had trained in that, too, as an Auror; he ought to be able to control himself better. He unfolded his arms deliberately and shook his head. "I know that I can't live as I was living," he said. _Even though it would still be my first choice. _The vulnerability he'd felt that morning, when he was sure that Draco was taunting him, had been uncomfortable enough to make him wish for that life back. "But I do intend to return to work as an Auror."

"And have you thought about plans for other friendships?" Theresa asked. "For finding other people in your life? Establishing social connections? Perhaps continuing to see a Healer? I can recommend other people at St. Mungo's, very discreet Healers who would keep your condition absolutely private. Or you can continue talking to me, though I understand why you wouldn't want to."

Harry tossed his head. He felt cornered, and he didn't like it. "I'm going to maintain my friendship with Draco," he said. "I'm going to work as an Auror. Beyond that, no, I haven't thought of it." He could almost feel Draco scowling where he was watching through the enchanted window. He didn't think that Draco could rightfully scold him for this one, though. After all, _he_ was the one who had been so insistent that Harry pay attention to activities inside the Manor.

"You should give some thought to your future, Harry." Theresa's voice had a lulling quality, which put Harry more on his guard. He knew her now. When she sounded most lulling, she was preparing some strike that would go for the jugular. "Before, you existed in a holding pattern. You cast a Cooling Charm on all your emotions, it seems to me. It would be too easy to return to and maintain such stasis. I'd like to see you try for change. I can help you with that, and so can Draco, but you'll want to include other people in your circle."

"I don't want to," said Harry. _If she wants honesty, she can have honesty. _"I just—I don't want to."

"Why not, Harry?" Theresa sounded as if she knew the answer already, and was waiting for him to figure it out. Harry had always hated that trait of Healers most, other than the ones that said they wouldn't go away and just leave him alone.

"Why should I have to go around making enormous changes?" Harry asked. "Why aren't a few small ones enough?"

"Because they probably won't be enough to keep you from slipping back," Theresa said quietly. "I want you to be able to live on your own, Harry, not just depend on someone else to keep you out of the abyss." She paused as Harry snorted with laughter. "What's so funny?"

"Abyss." Harry leaned back on the couch and extended his hands into the air before folding them behind his head. _Relaxed, carefree. That's what I want. _"You make it sound so dramatic."

"And you believe that what could have happened to you, insanity or the destruction of half of Muggle London due to your released magic, would not have been dramatic?" Theresa asked him.

Harry winced. He didn't like thinking about it. But then, that was the main reason he had agreed to make these changes, to prevent something like that from happening. "So," he said. "You think I would become the person I was again if my friendship with Draco didn't work out and I stopped talking to you as my Healer?"

"It's possible, if we're your only supports." Theresa leaned forward. "I still don't quite understand the source of your reluctance to change, Harry." Her tone said she understood it all too well, and Harry gritted his teeth to keep from lashing out. "Is it a lack of trust? A lack of anything outside your work to engage your interest? What?"

"Why does it have to be any one particular reason?" Harry rolled his shoulder and looked away. "I'd found a life that suited me, a life that let me help people and do something I cared about. And no one was left alive to be hurt by that lack of connections to me, and, as you'd pointed out, I'd put my emotions on hold, so I wasn't hurt, either. It worked for me. That was the reason."

"But it isn't the life you need, Harry, if you're to keep your magic under control." Theresa spoke as if she were edging up on a wild animal. "Nor is it the life that you deserve."

_That's it. _Healers were all mad for thinking that the reason people had problems was their belief that they didn't deserve—or did deserve—something or another. Harry shook his head. "I wasn't doing this to punish myself, if that's what you're implying," he said, and kept his voice bored. "I really did do it just because that was the life I fell into, the life that I embraced."

"Those are contradictions, Harry."

God, he was coiled as tight as a whiplash, and he didn't want to be. Theresa understood nothing, nothing at all. He hadn't wanted this. Of all the things Draco had offered him, this was the only one he actively hated.

"Leave it," he whispered, his good mood from the conversation with Draco vanishing completely.

Theresa looked at him with large, sad eyes, and shook her head. "I don't think I can, Harry," she said. "You stopped living when your friends died, as if you believed that you didn't deserve to be alive, didn't deserve to have friends, didn't deserve even to eat good food or get a regular amount of sleep, because they were dead. And you speak always of what other people got out of you—the help victims received from your work as an Auror, the hurt people _didn't_ take because of your lack of connections—and what you get out of it second, if at all. You're only here talking to me because of what could happen to other people."

"Stop it," Harry warned her, his teeth clenched.

"You do deserve to live," Theresa said, ignoring his warning. "You do deserve to have a life that includes other people, and that connects you to others, Harry. Your selflessness became a kind of self-serving justification for your actions, to hide actions you must have suspected were wrong—"

"They weren't _wrong_," Harry said heatedly. The one thing he could not stand was the accusation that he was a criminal. "I didn't do anything immoral."

"I meant wrong for you," Theresa said. "Wrong for your development as a whole and healthy human being."

"Who the fuck _cares_ about that?"

Harry knew he was red-faced and panting after he said that. He didn't care. God, he just wanted them all to _go away_, Theresa and even Draco in that moment, and _stop caring_. He'd got along fine with just the people he helped to worry about. The effort of working on a friendship with Draco left him weak and shaky. How in the world could this be worth it?

It couldn't be.

And now Theresa was feeding him this load of bollocks about how it was wrong and Harry was the moral equivalent of one of the Dark wizards he'd spent so much of his time working to rid the wizarding world of—

And saying that he believed he didn't _deserve_ to live after Ron and Hermione and the others were gone!

It was nonsense, all of it. And Harry was so damn sick and tired of being told that what he thought wasn't _really_ what he thought, that there was another layer of thoughts underneath it, susceptible to observation and correction by anyone reasonably well-intentioned.

"I do," said Theresa, making Harry blink, because at first the words seemed to have no link to his thoughts. Then he realized she was answering his question about who cared. She was on her feet, in fact, one hand reaching out to him. "And Draco does. We _do_ care, Harry. I will admit that Draco's methods are—unorthodox—but I have come to accept that his emotions are sincere, or I would never have let him keep you here, debt to the Malfoy family or no. Now that you are working on a friendship, you are moving in the right direction. If you can keep moving in it—"

Harry didn't want to hear more. His mind was so twisted, so confused, caught between the conflicting impulses to admit that, yes, his friendship with Draco was a good thing, and to shout that it wasn't because of all the horrible sexual interest mixed in with it, and to say that Theresa should go away and not care about him any more, which she would only use to prove her theories.

Besides, he could feel his magic twisting around him, waking, bursting its boundaries. He had to get out of there before he hurt someone.

He bolted without waiting for Theresa's next words. He didn't have his wand with him, as she had requested since that first session, but that wouldn't stop his magic if he remained in her presence.

He thought he heard Draco shouting his name. He ignored that. He didn't want to talk. He wanted to escape before he could cause some sort of disaster. That would be _all_ he needed, to bring down Malfoy Manor on the heads of those who had sheltered him and who professed to care about him.

He ran, and ran, and ran, and his feet must have remembered the way better than his head. He was out in the gardens, in the row of apple trees where he and Draco had walked yesterday.

His magic came with him, but luckily waited until he was there to inflict any damage. The earth around Harry shuddered, rising up beneath his feet. He fell, not making any attempt to stand. He'd had experience of fits like this while he was hunting Voldemort, and still bleeding from the emotional wound of the Weasley Massacre, before he'd learned to freeze his emotions. Standing, resisting it, just made it worse. Better to huddle and protect his head.

He heard apples fall around him like heavy rain, and then apple blossoms settled on his skin like the kiss of a gentler shower. That wouldn't have happened at all if not for the strange, mingled seasons the orchard bore like the flowers and fruit on its branches.

_It shouldn't—it shouldn't—_

He wanted to fly. He wanted to run away. He wanted to shout. He wanted—he didn't know what he wanted any more, except to creep into some locked room and shut a door on anyone who approached him.

What he had was his magic boiling and writhing, racking the ground and the trees, blasting flowers off nearby plants. He hated it, and he couldn't help it, and that sense of being out of control just fed the magic, and made its convulsions more violent and more unnecessary, and made him hate it more.

He curled up so tight his arms hurt. He didn't want to uncurl. He didn't want to see anyone beyond his tight little shell. He especially didn't want to see Draco, because he knew he would give in and talk to him. And that—

That could be the death of the person he had been.

Perhaps Theresa's metaphor of an abyss wasn't so dramatic after all. Harry knew a gap loomed ahead of him. He could feel the darkness trembling beneath his feet, ready to claim him.

If he thought about it too closely, he would admit that Draco and Theresa were right, that his thoughts did have some of the elements they talked about, and that he needed help. So the thing to do was not think about it.

His magic finally played itself out, as it always did, and left Harry sitting there. He uncurled his arms, relaxing a little when he realized Draco wasn't watching him. Or, if he was, he was employing a spell or technique good enough to fool both Harry's magic-heightened senses and his Auror training, which wasn't likely. That was good. It left him with a few more moments to decide what to do.

He couldn't go back on his word to Draco. And there were enough right things in what Theresa had said, without thinking about—_that_—that he felt compelled to keep listening and talking to her.

But he also couldn't do those things without becoming different.

_God, I don't want to._

If only there wasn't that possibility of becoming a Dark Lord, or killing other people with his magic. If suicide had been the only risk of his emotional isolation, he would have accepted it in a heartbeat.

_You really don't want to live, do you?_

Harry snorted. Since when had his conscience acquired Theresa's voice?

He was so involved in denying it that he didn't realize the voice speaking his name was outside his head at first. And then he looked up, and saw Wormwood standing at the edge of the row of apple trees.

Wormwood moved a few steps forward, his eyes bright. "I knew that person in the hospital bed wasn't you," he breathed. "He didn't have the sense of your magic. And when I tried _Finite Incantatem_ on him, he flickered. And then I got help finding out that you were at Malfoy Manor, and she opened the wards for me." He put out a hand, beaming widely. "Come on, partner. I'm bringing you back to the life you had to leave behind so suddenly."

Harry understood, then. While they had been playing a game with Narcissa, she'd been playing a game of her own. Confront Harry with the life he'd left behind, and he might not be able to resist going back to it.

And now the temptation yawned before him, the chance to preserve the person he had been, to refuse Theresa's words, to forget the sheer effort of maintaining a friendship that was like walking a rickety bridge in a windstorm.

To go home.


	21. A Decision to Make

I am sorry about the cliffhanger in the last chapter—except for the fact that it was a perfect place to end it.

_Chapter 21—A Decision to Make_

Wormwood's face fell when Harry didn't immediately move towards him. "Harry?" he asked tentatively. "That _is_ you, isn't it?"

That question he could answer, and any question he could answer sounded like a good thing right now. His heart beating fast in his mouth, Harry nodded.

The other man relaxed. "That's good," he said, and held out the hand that didn't clutch his wand. "We should leave, shouldn't we? Mrs. Malfoy told me the truth. Her son is a bit unstable, which means that he won't go to Azkaban for this, and she can work out a deal with the Ministry whereby she takes care of him. But it _does_ mean that we should leave as soon as possible, in case Draco Malfoy catches us."

Harry felt as if he were standing underwater, staring at Wormwood across a chasm. How could he leave now?

How could he stay?

Going with Wormwood would offer him everything he still wanted. Quiet, peace, a good life where he helped people. And if he died in a few years, well, it had been a good life.

Staying with Draco would cost him so much effort. He was aiming for a life like the one he'd enjoyed when Ron and Hermione were still alive, but who knew if he would ever get there? Far better to save what he could, clutch what little scraps of happiness came his way, and just be grateful that the wizarding world still had room for a worn-out hero.

He took a step forward.

And Draco, of course, chose that moment to arrive behind him in a swirl of robes and call out, "Harry?"

* * *

It had taken Draco forever to find Harry.

The idiot could run so _fast_ that he was out of sight in seconds. Then Theresa's urgent calls of his name had deterred Draco; he thought Harry had hurt her with his wandless magic, only to find out that she was just convinced Draco shouldn't go after Harry, but "give him some time to recover." Then he'd tried to ask Trippy, but she'd covered her ears, whimpered, and vanished. Draco thought his mother had probably ordered the house-elves not to assist him.

So he'd searched their bedrooms, and the Quidditch Pitch, and only thought of the garden when he saw a drift of apple blossoms rising in a spiral that couldn't be natural from the direction of the orchard.

And now he arrived here to find a man he recognized as Harry's newest partner narrowing his eyes and raising his wand, and Harry standing between the two of them. Harry turned to look at Draco with an absolutely desolate expression on his face, and Draco almost ceased to care about the Auror.

"Harry," he whispered. They were stuck on a pinnacle, and it wasn't one he'd managed to plan for, even if he'd orchestrated everything else. "Come on. We made a bargain. Are you just going to walk away from this?"

"I'm tired, Malfoy," Harry said simply. "And it would be easier to walk away from this. You know that as well as I do."

"Which is why you would never do it." Draco eased a step closer, then regretted it as that made Harry retreat. He was probably thinking more about getting away from Draco than going towards Wormwood, but Draco had no doubt that, once Harry was in reach, the Auror would grab him and Apparate out of the Manor. And then it would be all too easy for Harry to start thinking he'd never wanted to spend time at the Manor at all—which was true enough to make Draco's head hurt. "You're a Gryffindor. They don't take the easy paths."

Harry gave him a smile which had never known humor. "It's been a long time since I was a Gryffindor, Malfoy. A long time since I was anything but an Auror."

Wormwood smiled, clearly pleased by that announcement. Draco was not. He had invested so much time trying to make sure this wouldn't happen, that Harry couldn't leave the Manor until he'd seen the wreck of his life and admitted he needed help. And now it was all upset by a random chance.

_Chance, and your mother._

And Draco could see the plan now, of course. Even if Narcissa really had thought that Harry wouldn't leave the Manor, she'd had this as a backup plan. And perhaps she _had_ seen more of Harry's true character than either of them would like to believe. Placed in the reach of temptation, he could easily go back. She had counseled Draco to make Harry retreat from him, for one thing, and had Draco actually been willing to give Harry up, that tactic would have worked.

"You have him under some sort of enchantment, Malfoy." Wormwood's voice was scornful. "That's all right. I'll remove it, and then you can go back inside your pretty house and let your mum take care of you." He pointed his wand at Harry and quickly intoned, "_Finite Incantatem!_"

Harry just blinked his eyes and shook his head. "It wasn't an enchantment, Wormwood," he said. The smile was gone, and he just sounded—weary. "It was a stupid dream that he convinced me to believe for a little while. But I don't believe it any more." He turned his back on Draco. "Let's go."

Draco could have stopped him—raised the Manor's wards against him, for one thing. He still had greater control of them than his mother did. He made a mental note to make sure he transformed them so that he had _sole_ control. Letting Narcissa be able to lower them without his knowledge had been a mistake.

But he knew Harry had to stay here of his own free will, or the healing Draco and Theresa both hoped for wouldn't happen.

That didn't mean he couldn't persuade him, though.

"Harry," he called, and Harry lifted his head at the sound of his voice. He was responsive, whether he wanted to admit it or not, just as he hardened at Draco's touch. "Think about what you're going back to. A few years, and it could all fall out from under you. Do you want that?"

"Don't listen to him, Harry," Wormwood whispered confidingly, as if entrusting Harry with a great secret. "He's mad."

But Harry turned around and directly addressed Draco, ignoring his partner's unsubtle tugs at his arm. "I want it," he said. "It's easier. I don't have to think over my words every time I say them. I don't explode in fits of magic, because I can keep my emotions _under some kind of fucking control._" The trees shuddered, then settled back into place again, and Harry shuddered as if in sympathy. "Don't you see, Malfoy? You should be happy I'm going. You're in danger around me."

"And what about the other people in danger around you, when what Theresa predicted happens?" Draco asked. He hated to play this card, but, at the moment, Harry's choice to stay was more important than the reason he made it. Harry had to remain. They could work on changing his reasons later.

"Who's Theresa?" Wormwood demanded, his wand swinging back to reorient on Draco. "Your little partner in this mad escapade to enslave _my_ partner?"

Harry quivered. "I just—I can't think about that, Malfoy. I'll deal with it when it happens, I suppose."

"And how will the people around you deal with it?" Draco demanded. "The innocent victims you've spent your life serving? What will they do when you become a Dark Lord, one harder to predict than Voldemort, because you'll be so totally insane and so completely starved of human affection and company?"

Harry turned his head away. Draco could practically see the bleeding chunks the words had torn off him. He was sorry to do it, but he had been willing to hunt Harry down in the first place and plan for two years to help him. He wasn't above speaking a few cruel truths.

"That's _enough_, Malfoy." Wormwood was trembling with righteous indignation. "I'm going to see that you get taken to Azkaban after all. You're manipulative, and you don't have the right to say those things to Potter."

"They're true," said Draco, not moving. He knew he was better and faster with a curse than some pissant little Auror. Besides, Harry couldn't see him making a hostile move against Wormwood. It might be the thing that would decide the war going on in his head right now. "He knows they're true, and he knows why. He's had some very interesting conversations in the last few days. And I've heard them. He can be selfish, the way he has been all these years, and cut off contact with anyone else, and doom half the city, or he can actually come here and try to start living like a human being again, with someone willing to help him."

"Stop," Harry whispered. "Please stop."

And then Wormwood moved.

The spell he cast at Draco was nothing more than a minor hex compared to some of the Dark curses Draco had dealt out in his time, but it was still one that was disabling and painful.

And Harry gave an inarticulate shout and threw himself between Draco and the curse, using his body as a shield. He was down in the dirt a second later, twitching and convulsing, his hands pressed to his stomach.

Draco flicked his own wand out, binding Wormwood. His eyes were wide and motionless, fixed past Draco, while his wand clattered to the ground.

Draco strode over to Harry then, and whispered, "_Finite Incantatem_. Hush, Harry, it's all right."

Slowly, Harry relaxed from around the center of his pain. Draco stroked his hair, marveling at the way Harry cuddled closer to him. The motion made his choice clear, if the sacrifice of himself to save Draco hadn't. Harry had decided to stay here and risk the harder road, to strive for friendship and humanity.

_Just like a Gryffindor._

Draco called Hoppy, and the young house-elf appeared immediately. "Fetch a Calming Draught," he whispered. He was sure that Harry would try to refuse the potion if Draco gave him too much time, while, with the vial pressed against his lips, he would probably give in. Hoppy gave him a solemn nod and vanished. Draco let out a breath of relief. Narcissa had only given the house-elves commands not to help him locate Harry, most likely. Matters would have been far harder if she'd given a comprehensive command.

Of course, that would have given her game away much earlier.

Draco crouched next to Harry, stroking his hair with one hand and keeping his voice low and soothing. Wormwood could hear him from here. Besides, Draco was saying the words mostly for his own satisfaction.

"You're going to leave here, and you won't trouble Harry again. I've watched you. I've heard what you said about him when you weren't in the office. You don't care for him as a friend.

"He's your ticket to glory, isn't he? You were going to be the latest one who shared his captures and took on credit you didn't deserve. Harry works his arse off, but he isn't ambitious. That means that other people can take all the advantages he should have had, could have had if he wanted them.

"You only came to get the Auror back. You don't care about Harry the man. Unfortunately, given that you're an Auror and I don't have a copy to replace _you_, I can't kill you, and I can't make you suffer the way I'd like to, for hurting him and disrupting his healing. I can only do this." Draco aimed his wand straight at the bound, terrified man. "_Obliviate_." He'd never spoken the spell with so much smugness.

Wormwood's jaw dropped open and slack. Draco wondered how much he would forget—everything concerned with Harry, of course, but there might be other things. Draco didn't care. He indicated to Hoppy that he should take Wormwood outside the Manor and release his bonds, and the little house-elf was more than happy to oblige.

Then Draco turned, cast a Lightening Charm, and picked Harry up, just as he had that night when he first took him, when he fell limp and relaxed in the alley. This time, the façade was completely broken, and Draco's hold was tighter than it had been, more protective.

He suspected the breakdown Harry had been fighting had come at last.

He took the vial of Calming Draught Hoppy had handed him, but then hesitated, and slid it into the pocket of his robes. He could always use it later, such as if Harry's wandless magic became dangerous. For now, though, it might be best to let Harry work through his emotions and come to the conclusions he needed to come to, without forcing them back into submission.

* * *

Harry could feel the tears burning at the back of his eyes. By contrast, his throat was hot and dry, like the desert at high noon.

It wasn't the pain from the curse, God knew. He'd suffered much worse in his duties as an Auror and rarely done more than clench his teeth to hold back the cries. But what it meant, that he'd lunged to get in between the curse and Draco instead of just drawing his own wand and stopping the whole thing—

He'd chosen this.

But he was so _tired._

He could feel himself getting ready to fall, and he fought it. He didn't _want_ this. He didn't want to yield to the emotions. God, it felt as if he had _years_ of accumulated tears to work through. And given that he couldn't remember really weeping since the night the Weasleys died, that might even be accurate.

Draco's hand stroking his hair seemed prone to force the tears out of him. Draco's arms around him told him it was all right to relax and let them come, and his voice murmured the identical words, over and over again, low and soothing.

Harry fought. It wasn't manly to cry. It wasn't like an Auror to cry. He couldn't afford it. He knew what depths of bitterness and grief and emotion waited underneath.

It was too much, though. The first sob escaped him, and he curled up and began to weep frantically.

Draco supported him, and didn't tell him to hush, didn't tell him to bear it, didn't scorn him. He just held him, and said it was all right.

This was going to change everything between them. Harry knew it, and yet right now he couldn't bring himself to care. He was so _tired._

He gave in.


	22. Hollowed

_Chapter 22—Hollowed_

Harry knew they were moving, but he couldn't tell where they were going, and that was just fine with him. Even though he knew he lay in Draco's arms with his head propped on his shoulder, his mind was alive with memories of the past, thoughts he'd tried to push away for too long.

Ron had had an argument with Hermione the day they died, and then made up with her. Harry had heard the argument—something stupid about how much research was appropriate before they started on the Horcrux quest—but not the making up. He knew Ron had appeared a few minutes before Harry decided to walk outside, face flushed and eyes shining, and said only, "Hermione," when Harry asked what he was so happy about.

Maybe, if they'd both lived, Ron and Hermione would have divorced in a few years, or been violently unhappy with each other. Harry didn't think so, though all he had to go on was that glimpse of Ron's face. It had been the face of a man, not a boy, in love.

Hermione had spent the day before they died working out probable locations for Helga Hufflepuff's cup. She had concentrated so fiercely on her books, borrowed from the Hogwarts library, that she hadn't heard Molly call her for dinner several times. Then she'd started up, and looked irritated at having to eat and talk and set the book aside. But her eyes had widened when Fleur casually described a practice among French wizards that made Molly mutter something about "indecency," and soon she'd been firing questions at Fleur so fast that Arthur had to intervene so Fleur could get something to eat.

She'd been bossy, and certain the answers were in books even when they weren't, and perhaps more book-smart than intelligent about the world. But she had been a good friend, and Harry missed her like an amputated arm.

Ginny.

She was the one he went out of his way to avoid thinking about, because she had died younger than all of them, with more of her life ahead of her to be lived. And maybe because he'd—loved her? Felt something for her? He hadn't known what to call it when she was still alive, the conflicting facts that he'd broken up with her and that his breath still caught in his throat when she smiled at him, and he hadn't tried to define it in the years since. What was there to define? She was dead and more than buried.

She should have lived. Harry didn't know if she should have lived with him, and he doubted it mattered. She should have been alive, and become a professional Seeker or an Auror or something else that would have appropriately scandalized her mother, and had children.

Oh, God, all of them should have lived, all of them, and that they had only headstones and not proper graves—because no one could truly sort out one set of pounded, burned remains from another—was an indignity and a disgrace not to be borne.

He was _still_ crying when Draco laid him down in the middle of something large and soft, which felt like a bed, but when Harry tried to open his eyes to see, they stung and burned with tears, and he had to close them.

Draco lay down, behind and beside him, and pulled him close into his arms.

And Harry caught his breath and then went on sobbing. He wondered wearily when it would end. He _wanted_ it to end. He didn't want to spend so much of his time in sorrow, in mourning.

Because he knew that, when the mourning ended, he would have to find something else to do with his life, accept the grief and heal and go on.

And he wasn't looking forward to that right now.

* * *

Draco didn't know when the sobs stopped and Harry eased into sleep. He had half-hypnotized himself into a mantra of his own, murmuring the same soothing words over and over, stroking Harry's hair and losing himself in the endless piled fragrance of his body. And then he realized Harry had stopped shaking and was still. He eased back and stared into his face, tear-streaked but relaxed.

Silently, Draco summoned Hoppy, and requested a clean rag to wash Harry's face. He wiped off the tear-tracks, but spent some moments tracing the trails where they'd been with a finger, and then another few minutes tracing the lightning bolt scar. He didn't think he'd have been allowed to touch it so extensively were Harry still awake. Harry seemed aware of it most of the time, shaking his fringe out to conceal it, cocking his head away from Draco even when the rest of his body sat close.

It wasn't the scar that had enchanted Draco into his obsession. And though it had begun with a photograph and the desire to fuck Harry, before he knew anything else about him, it hadn't stayed there. Draco had spent two years insisting to his mother and his bemused friends that his longing for Harry went deeper than that, that it wasn't just sexual. When Blaise asked him why Draco couldn't just pay someone else to Polyjuice into Harry—he was certainly capable of obtaining a strand of Harry's hair—and satisfy his desires that way, Draco had shaken his head and said that wouldn't give him what he wanted. And that was true, even if it was hard to put words to what he really wanted.

He'd said that, and said that, and said that.

It was just a bit of a shock to find out that he'd been right.

* * *

Harry opened his eyes slowly. He knew it was the next morning from the sun slanting through the windows. Once again, his stomach was hollow with hunger, and warm arms and legs draped and clasped him, just as they had the first night that he spent in Draco's bed.

Other parts of him were hollow, too.

Harry opened and closed his eyes several times, experimentally. They felt dry and dusty, still, but the long sleep had done him good. He didn't feel nearly as horrible as he would have had he stayed awake when the shedding of tears was done.

What he felt was hollow.

The tears had broken. A storm that had been building up inside him for years had finally passed. He could look out at the rest of the wizarding world with wonder and curiosity again, the way he had when he'd first come to it at eleven. The burden, the block, that not even defeating Voldemort had removed for him was finally gone.

And it scared the shit out of him.

Harry closed his eyes again, and tried to think. Yesterday, he had known what he wanted, even as he acknowledged that it might not be possible. He wanted to go home and resume his Auror work. He wanted Draco and Theresa to leave him alone. He wanted to forget about the things they were trying to make him remember.

Now, he didn't have a clue what he wanted.

He wondered if he ever had. Defeating Dark wizards and catching them had seemed a natural path for him after the Horcrux hunt, but that had come out of a conversation with McGonagall in his fifth year, when he had said that he wanted to be an Auror because—well, because. And fifth year was nearly half a lifetime ago now. He'd been fifteen. Should he let that control his life?

Well, yes, perhaps. He'd been more alive then, in many ways, than he ever had since.

But he didn't know if he wanted to remain an Auror or not. He would have to find another job if he did retire, but he had some money stored away from his pay; he could afford a few weeks or months of contemplation.

And then there was the choice of staying where he was, keeping his bargain with Draco, and talking to Theresa still.

_Maybe that was the real reason I didn't want to cry, _Harry thought, and broke the stillness to stretch his arms over his head. _As long as I didn't deal with the grief, I had an excuse to pause where I was and not move forward. And now I'm just a hollowed shell, and I have to figure out how to learn life again. I'm not sure that I want that, either, but I don't have a choice._

"Good morning," Draco's voice whispered into his shoulder.

Harry deliberately blanked his mind, the way he had once tried to do in Occlumency training. He was going to go with the moment and see where it took him. He rolled over until he and Draco were face-to-face.

"Good morning," he whispered back, not because he had to keep his voice that soft, but because it seemed natural to do so.

Draco regarded him solemnly for a long moment. Harry wondered if he would move, but Draco seemed to be deliberately holding himself in check. Perhaps he thought he would frighten Harry, or thought it best that he made the decision on his own.

But Harry was thinking with a hollowed-out mind, like an eggshell full of sunlight, and so, for the first time in a long while, he went with his impulses and not his training or his self-control.

He leaned forward, and kissed Draco firmly. He didn't think; he did.

* * *

Draco felt he should hold his breath. God, was this really happening? Was Harry really kissing him, carefully but with increasing insistence and force, as if Draco might vanish whether or not he did it?

Yes, he was. And Draco now suspected that Harry's surrender to tears had been a surrender in other important ways.

He wasn't fool enough to pass up a kiss like this, at least. He slipped one hand around the back of Harry's neck, and pulled him closer, taking control of the kiss, and then tearing away from Harry's lips to explore his cheeks, the corners of his mouth, his throat.

Harry arched his back, offering himself up, his breathing fast and shallow, his eyes already wide and dilated. Draco went slowly, certain Harry would regret this and pull away any moment, but he didn't seem to. Instead, he held still and let Draco explore him.

The skin of his neck was smoother than Draco would have expected, and far saltier. Perhaps Harry spent more of his time sweating than other people, Draco thought, entranced and dazed, though surely he should have noticed that during his intense observation over the last few years if it was true. His shoulder was hard and bony, a sudden rise against Draco's hand. He shifted track and kissed the fluttering pulse point at the base of Harry's throat instead. It fluttered harder, and Harry's arms came up and tugged Draco down until he rested against his chest, then abruptly rolled them over so that he straddled Draco's legs and groin.

It would have taken a stronger man, and a more selfless one than Draco had ever claimed to be, to resist that pressure. He arched upward, making sure that Harry could feel his erection against his leg, and Harry's eyes just got wider, darker, more intense. Draco had the feeling that the trained Auror was behind them now, studying him, while before Harry had kissed almost as if empty, something essential gone out of him.

Harry stooped and took his turn exploring. His tongue wasn't nearly as practiced as Draco's, or his kisses as expert, but the mere fact that he'd initiated this contact, that he wasn't just lying there passively, set Draco aflame. He let his head roll to the side and released guttural groans that he hadn't ever shown any of his other lovers. Harry deserved his openness more than they had.

"Draco," Harry whispered at last, moving his mouth to Draco's ear. Draco shivered and comforted himself with the idea that at least Harry's ears were more sensitive than his own. A mere _touch_ made Harry move closer, intent on getting more of the contact that his body wanted even if his mind didn't.

"What, Harry?" Draco asked, hoping the next words out of Harry's mouth would be "Fuck me." Yes, it might be wrong to do that so close to Harry's grief, but, on the other hand, sex was a way of affirming life in the presence of death and mourning. At least that was the way Draco intended to explain their having sex to Theresa if she asked.

Harry cocked his head. "What do you want?" he asked. "What's in it for you if we do become—if we have sex?" Draco wished he could have known what word Harry was originally going to put at the end of that sentence, but he strove for patience, above the impatient cries of his body, and answered as calmly as he could.

"I _want_ you, Harry." He raised a hand to still Harry's open mouth, which was about to say he knew that, and found his hand pushed flat against Harry's chest, they were so close. God, if Harry would press down just a _little_ more…But he had to ignore that. The question Harry had asked was important. "Yes, like that. But also more than that. Your presence, your companionship, the expression on your face when you're actually happy for a sustained period of time. The way you look when you come, as well as what you'll make me feel when you do it." He paused, then shrugged, and even that made their shoulders bump. "And maybe more than that, too, but that's as much as I'm willing to commit to right now."

An intense moment passed, and then Harry sat back with a small shake of his head. "Perhaps we should wait, then," he said.

Draco made his vocalization a grunt of frustration rather than a scream. That was progress, he thought. "_Why_?" he asked. "You don't have to fuck me if you'd rather not, Harry, but—"

Harry shifted then, and Draco felt his cock brush against Draco's own. Both of them shuddered simultaneously, Harry's head falling back, Draco's spine pressing hard into the bed. But Harry's voice, incredibly, still sounded half-controlled.

"I want to know more about you. I don't want to rush into this just because _I_ would like sex right now. If this—if this is a permanent friendship, partnership, whatever it is, you need to get something out of it, too, Draco. It's good to know that you want to make me happy, but what can I do to make you happy? I'll need to know you better than I do to answer that question."

_Damn Gryffindor selflessness! _Harry could use a good hard fuck as much as he could right now; Draco knew he could. Harry kept moving slowly from side, showing that part of him wasn't quite convinced by his elegant little speech, but then he shook his head and stilled his motion.

Draco caught his breath and said, "You know…" He let it trail off suggestively enough to do the trick. Harry raised his eyebrows.

"What?"

"Perhaps we don't need to _fuck_ yet," said Draco. Harry's eyes rested on his mouth when he said that word, and Draco resisted, manfully, the urge to flip him back over and get on with things. "But that doesn't mean that we can't do something else. Something short of that, but—satisfying in its own way."

Harry's eyes darkened more. "What?" he asked, his voice dry and half-strangled.

"Let me show you," said Draco, and tried to make his tone soft and seductive and soothing all at once.

He must have done something right. Harry's breathing deepened, and that pulse was beating crazily in his throat now, showing his excitement.

He said one word, but it was enough for Draco.

"Yes."


	23. Harry Has a New Experience

Thanks again for the comments!

_Chapter 23—Harry Has a New Experience_

Harry started to wonder what he was really doing as he eased back against the pillows and watched Draco strip off the pyjamas he was wearing. He wasn't _really_ going to do this, was he? Let Draco—what? Touch him? Fuck him? Except that Draco had said the fucking wouldn't happen right now, but—

"Calm down, Harry."

For some reason, it was much easier to be calm when that smooth voice spoke to him. Well, calm and focused on his arousal. He took a deep breath and looked into Draco's eyes. Draco's hands undid Harry's trousers and slid them down his legs, and Harry let that happen.

He became aware that he was focusing on Draco's eyes and hands as a way to avoid looking at the rest of his naked body. Well, fine. If that was what needed to happen right now, that was what would happen. Harry was under no illusions that he could maintain that pretense forever, but to ease him into this experience, past his discomfort? It would work just as well as anything else would.

Draco's eyes were wide, his cheeks flushed with desire. Harry blinked, and lost himself in the wonder of that for a moment. _He'd_ sparked that desire. He might still not understand exactly why, but he knew Draco wanted him. That was in no doubt.

A surge of confidence struck him, and, before he could consider whether he was ready for this, he pulled off his own shirt.

"Good," Draco said softly, and then he eased Harry's pants off, and then Harry really _was_ naked.

Draco knelt between Harry's legs for a moment, just gazing at him. Harry watched the expressions dart across his face, too many of them to keep track of. He wasn't sure that he wanted to try, in fact. The separate looks finally melded together into one of lust, and that would do for now.

Draco sat back, with a roll of his shoulders and slow toss of his head, and that motion drew Harry's eyes naturally to his legs and the cock between them. He could feel himself flush again, but _God_, it was hard to resist looking. He didn't know what to think, because he hadn't spent a lot of time thinking about other men and what they looked like. Draco's cock was darkened with blood, of what Harry supposed was a normal length and thickness, and hard enough to look painful. Draco spread his legs wide and took himself in hand, casually stroking.

Harry closed his eyes. The sight had made him get harder, and unfortunately, his brain was in no doubt about what that meant.

_You are gay. What kind of straight man would be staring at something like that and finding it interesting?_

"Calm down, Harry," Draco repeated, but this time his voice had a tone of amusement to it. Harry supposed he'd shown some visible reaction that Draco couldn't possibly take for one of disgust. "I told you, we don't have to fuck each other. There are plenty of other things we can do. Would you like me to stroke you and make you come, the way I almost did in the pool? I can do that, you know."

"I—" Harry knew what he wanted. The mention of the pool and Draco's voice had reminded him of it, and now he couldn't get it out of his head. But he didn't know if he could ask for it. His cheeks burned just thinking about it. How in the world was he supposed to _ask_?

Draco's hand clasped his cheek, and drew him close for a kiss. Harry relaxed into it, because this was practically normal after everything. Then he found it was probably a bad idea, because the needle-prick of tongues sliding against each other was only heightened, like every other sensation, when he was this aroused. He broke the kiss, gasping, and shuddered.

He probably resembled a child, he knew, or some sixteen-year-old girl. He didn't think he could help it. His brain was reeling with the rush of pleasure—or hormones—and he felt like he was going to come any moment.

"Well, Harry?" Draco's voice lingered and dragged and brushed; Harry could feel it on his skin like a hand. "Surely you didn't come so far to give up now. What will it be? My hand? Should we lie on each other and rut together? Should—"

Harry dredged up as much courage as he could. At least, if he asked, that would shut Draco up for a moment, and then he wouldn't come all over the sheets from the sound of that voice alone.

"Your mouth," he said.

There was perfect silence for a minute, and fear blew through Harry's arousal like a blast of cold wind. _Great, I probably fucked everything up by asking for the one thing he's not willing to give me._

When he opened his eyes, though, he saw that Draco's face looked as though someone had just given him the best Christmas gift _ever_, one he had never expected to receive.

He leaned in for another kiss, this one slower and gentler, swirling his tongue around Harry's in what was practically foreshadowing, and which made Harry have to close his eyes again.

"Good answer," Draco said, breathlessly.

* * *

It was what Harry had so obviously wanted, but Draco had been sure he wouldn't ask for it. They would have to ease into that, as Harry overcame the pure drugging effects of pleasure and stopped reacting as though Draco had fire on his hands every time he touched him.

But no, he had been brave and asked for it, and Draco's mouth was salivating at the prospect of sucking a cock—well, at the prospect of sucking _someone else's _cock—more than it ever had.

He did take up his wand and cast a charm that eased Harry back from the edge a little. For one thing, he didn't want Harry to come at a touch, and feel so embarrassed that he might regret letting Draco this close.

For another, Draco wanted him sane enough to concentrate.

He slid down the bed, and waited until Harry peeked, obviously wondering what had happened. Then Draco opened his mouth and slowly slid his tongue around Harry, watching his expression all the while.

Harry's eyes appeared poised to take over his whole face. Then they fell shut again, and his back arched off the bed, and he gave a pure, animalistic grunt of pleasure.

Draco decided that was concentration enough, and set to work.

* * *

Harry felt as though someone were jabbing spikes of warmth up his body from his groin. It was the most intense sensation he'd ever felt, with tongue and lips and the occasional bare hint of teeth making his hips roll and jerk and his heart gallop the way it only did when he was in the middle of a duel.

He didn't want it to ever stop.

He drifted out of the haze enough to realize that he was grunting and groaning and making all sorts of embarrassing noises. He tried to close his mouth, or clamp a hand over it to stifle them, but he _couldn't_. His hand spasmed and fell back to the bed when he tried, and then he began uttering short, sharp cries.

He gave it up as a lost cause, and settled on the more modest goal of at least warning Draco when he was about to come. Fuzzy memories of overheard conversations from years ago, conversations he'd had no interest in at the time, hinted that it was bad etiquette not to.

He thought he gabbled a warning. At least, it had Draco's name in it and something about coming. Draco either didn't hear it—which Harry _really_ hoped wasn't the case—or merrily ignored it, because a particularly hard suck came after that, and then Draco did something adventurous with his tongue that seemed to involve sweeping it from base to head in one fast, smooth motion.

Harry came.

White noise had taken over his brain, white light. He couldn't hear his own sounds any more, or feel the sheets beneath him. Pleasure consumed him to the point that, for the first time in eleven years, he couldn't even _think_ of anything else, the way that he'd always been able to concentrate on the next case during a boring meeting or drift near the surface of his dreams and think about work. There was just—

Nothing.

He felt good.

More nothingness.

And then he opened his eyes and rolled over with a huge effort, as if all his limbs were rocks, to see Draco grinning smugly down at him.

Draco lifted an eyebrow and ran his tongue over his lips from right to left, first the top lip, then the lower one. He didn't say anything.

He didn't have to. Harry knew that Draco had enjoyed watching him, that he hadn't come too soon, and that if he had failed some test of manners, Draco didn't intend to hold it against him.

He did have one hand on his cock, though, stroking it absently, except for the rough little tweak he gave with his fingers each time he reached the head. His hips twitched forward, elegant, controlled motions.

And Harry, striving to ignore the satiation that still overcame him when he'd had an orgasm, was curious.

Besides, it wasn't as though he could let Draco _win._

* * *

Draco liked Harry pretty much anytime—admitting his mistakes, flying, flinging himself in front of curses for Draco's sake—but he had to admit that his favorite of Harry's expressions might be the moment he came.

He'd been so open, so uncontrolled, so much like the passionate boy Draco remembered from Hogwarts. His sensitivity to touch meant he couldn't hold anything back. Draco had wanted him to be like that, a lover who flung himself into intimacy, but he hadn't known if it would ever happen, given Harry's long years of repression.

It did happen. Harry had no choice but to give himself over when he came. It heartened Draco.

It also made him _damn_ ready, and if Harry was too overwhelmed to return the favor, Draco would simply have to bring himself to completion. He'd closed his eyes, knowing he was close, and wanting to carry the image of Harry's astonished green eyes, his ecstatic and _happy_ face, into the moment of his own climax.

Then Harry's hand replaced his own. Burning with warmth, it smoothed down Draco's erection in just the way he liked, and Draco felt his balls drawing up. He half-fell forward, his head collapsing on Harry's shoulder, and Harry's left arm curved around his back to support him.

He knew what would happen, at least if Harry had really been paying attention.

Sure enough, Harry reached the head.

And pinched.

Draco came hard, his hips jerking so fast that he half-thought he'd broken something. He felt Harry's arm tighten, and then Harry was kissing him. That was almost better than the orgasm.

Well, not really, because nothing was better than that, but having the man he'd been obsessed with for two years kissing him back as if he could taste Draco's excitement through his mouth came very close.

Boneless, Draco nearly fell on his face, but Harry manipulated them and rolled over so that he was under Draco like a pillow. Draco gave an exhausted yawn. Harry fumbled around, located what was either his wand or Draco's, and muttered a cleaning spell.

Then Draco heard the wand tumble to the bed. That was all right, because, really, who had the energy to cast spells after a round of sex like _that_?

And then they were both asleep, or at least Draco was, _dragged_ into it, and if Harry wasn't, he didn't know.

* * *

Harry woke slowly and what, judging from the angle of the light, must be a few hours later. It had been the deepest sleep he'd had in years. He couldn't remember a tremor from the outside world, while he was usually aware in an instant if something had changed around him.

Draco sprawled over him and held him down, snoring. His weight was warm and stifling and sticky with sweat, and made Harry feel as he had when he fell asleep under too many blankets at the Weasleys'. His facial muscles hurt.

He also felt bloody fantastic, and while that wasn't all Draco's doing, ninety percent of it was.

Harry shivered and shook his head, closing his eyes. Apparently he'd got over his grief and discovered he was gay and had sex with another man for the first time all in one day. Or less than that, since he'd really broken down mid-afternoon of yesterday.

He didn't think he should feel this good.

He wasn't used to his life being this _full_.

He also knew he'd probably have to get used to it, because Draco would hardly let him retreat backwards from here. Be understanding—that, Harry could see of him (and had he ever thought the day would come when he would be saying that of _Draco Malfoy_, of all people?) Even accept that there might be a period of some time before Harry wanted sex again, since Harry would need the time to think things over.

Let Harry walk out of his life and pretend this had never happened? No.

Harry told himself sternly that this should frighten him. And it did. He told himself sternly that he had far too many emotions in his head right now. And he did. He told himself that Theresa would probably be dismayed when she found out what they'd done, and advise them to take cautious steps from here on out. And she would.

_Who are you fooling?_

The thing was, his facial muscles hurt not from the kissing, but from the grin that had been stretching them from the moment he woke up.

Something was definitely wrong with him, but he'd spent most of his life having something wrong with him. At least this was a more pleasant sort of wrong than otherwise.

Troubles and problems and everything else would come, and Harry knew it. There was Narcissa, there was Theresa, there was the end of the month, there was Wormwood, there was the fact that Draco was still an incredible bastard when he wanted to be. But Harry was willing to face them, for no reason that made sense under the sun.

He supposed that was what he got for being Harry Potter.


	24. Conversations With Narcissa

Thanks again for the reviews!

_Chapter 24- Conversations With Narcissa_

Harry could still feel Draco's gaze on the back of his neck, even after he was fully dressed and Draco really should have stopped looking. As he turned around, buttoning up the robes, he saw Draco openly staring, and flushed. "What?" he asked. "Did you bite me on the side of the neck, and is your mother going to notice?"

Draco laughed softly. "Are you always this nervous the afternoon after you have sex, Harry?" He paused, then added, "Not that there could have been many of those."

"You're a git." Harry closed his eyes and shook himself. "You're the one who seriously proposed that we go out and flaunt ourselves in front of your mother, and you blame me for being nervous?"

Draco snorted, and then must have moved towards him, because arms encircled his waist. Harry had little choice but to lean against him as he whispered, "I promise, Harry, this _is_ the best course. She saw through our game, that's obvious, and she knows she's given away her own by letting Wormwood through the wards. As long as we could pretend, that would be one thing, but I think it's best that we confront her."

Harry just nodded. He couldn't say what he truly feared without sounding like a child: that Narcissa would bring up enough good reasons why he and Draco shouldn't be together to convince one or both of them.

The happiness he'd experienced in bed a few hours ago had been a fleeting thing, as he knew it would be. By the time Draco woke and grinned at him, Harry had thought more about the problems they'd face, and while he didn't regret- that- and didn't intend to go backwards, he was much more concerned about them than before. Because, really, how could he think he had a chance with Draco? Twenty days wasn't enough time to learn everything he'd need to know. And Draco's mother hated him and thought him an unsuitable partner for her son. Draco might be willing to laugh off Narcissa's disapproval; Harry wasn't.

He'd lived for years with people who disapproved of him. And even though he'd told himself over and over again that he didn't care about the Dursleys, hated them even, and didn't care what they thought of him, there were only short stretches of time during which that had been true, like the summer before his fifth year. Most of the time, it was _hard_ to live with family hating you, even family you didn't particularly like.

If Draco's picture of the future was too sunny, he would trip straight over problems that he didn't see- or else he would step over them easily, forgiven for being who he was, but Harry would trip and go sprawling.

But, on the other hand, they did have to confront Narcissa, because _she_ would try for the elegant silence, and letting it slide past, only to strike at them later. She would be flustered enough to give away her own next move if they confronted her now, Draco said, and Harry had to concede that he knew his mother.

He just hated the idea of this.

* * *

Draco could understand the source of Harry's nerves, but that didn't prevent him from finding it endearing and funny. Harry honestly thought they would face the first challenge after they'd had sex- well, sex of a limited kind- and crumple. Or that Narcissa possessed the power to talk Draco around when he finally had what he'd wanted for two years.

_How funny._

Draco supposed that part of his euphoria could have come from the rush of hormones earlier, but he was much calmer than Harry, and cockier. He _did_ know his mother. She had caught him by surprise with inviting Wormwood to the Manor, but she shouldn't have. He'd adjusted the wards soon after he awoke to make sure that she couldn't pull such a trick again. And now that he was forewarned, he intended to warn her, as gently as possible, to stay out of his life.

Everything, so far as Draco could research, had gone wrong for Harry that possibly could. It was only natural that he'd be pessimistic about this. It was wrong of him, though, to assume that Draco would put more weight on his mother's opinion than on his liking for Harry.

_Liking?_

_Well, yes. It's more than obsession._

Give it enough time, and it would get to love.

Draco was no longer shying around the thought. Why should he? So far as he was concerned, their relationship had faced the first test and soared over it beautifully. There'd been the small chance that after he had Harry's surrender, he wouldn't want anything else from it. Certainly, if his feelings had simply centered on sexual surrender, one sight of it ought to have been enough for him, as it had been with several lovers in the past.

But instead, he felt incredibly protective, and possessive, and he couldn't wait to do it again, but he would have to wait if that was what Harry needed.

Narcissa had no chance against something like that. Draco respected her, and loved her in his own way, but she still imagined she could compel him to choose a wife and raise children in perfect Malfoy suitability.

She was about to learn how wrong she really was.

Draco looped his arm through Harry's, and led him casually towards the room where they'd dined with Narcissa once before.

* * *

The room hadn't substantially changed, Harry saw. The long table of dark wood was still in place, and Narcissa still waited like a pale vision at the end of it. And now that he didn't have either his own response to Draco's kiss or his desire to make an arse of himself on his mind, Harry felt more than a little intimidated.

_I'm not- I'm not worse than this, but I just don't belong here. _And Narcissa's gaze, cool and assessing, said she knew it. _Not someone who grew up wearing Dudley's jumpers and thinking magic didn't exist. She won't give up hating me, or thinking I'm wrong for her son. This is- _

And then Draco interrupted him by saying, "Hello, Mother. Since you've expressed so much interest in my relationship with Harry, I thought I'd let you know that we're lovers now."

Harry could feel his face flaming. For the first time, he made a serious effort to pull his arm away from Draco. But Draco just adjusted the position of it and gave his elbow a little pat, as though Harry's anxiety was cute, and then turned back to face his mother, who seemed ready to answer.

"Congratulations, Draco." Narcissa folded her hands. "And when you grow tired of him, as you did of Melinda and Mary and Orestes, will you at least give him the Galleons to stand on his own feet again as you release him from the Manor? Since he will have missed a few weeks of work, having spent time in a hospital bed."

Harry winced. He didn't care that much about Draco's other lovers- honestly, how could he care about people he wouldn't have been interested in had he even realized they existed five years ago?- but the rest of Narcissa's comment stung. The implication that Draco would get tired of him, that he'd pay Harry for sex, that it would happen in a few weeks-

And then Draco was laughing, merrily, as if his mother's words had been a joke.

"I understand that you resent the work you envision yourself having to do, Mother," he said. "After all, redecorating a wing of the Manor would cost you time and money. But I plan to order Trippy to do it. She'll ready Harry's rooms for him much more swiftly and easily than you ever could."

Harry eyed Draco cautiously in turn. _And he's speaking as if we'll be spending the rest of our lives together. This is- this is strange. How in the world can he be so confident? He grew up with his mother. Does he really put no stock in her opinion? Doesn't he feel closer to her than he does to me?_

Narcissa's face had turned noticeably paler when Harry glanced back at her, but she only bowed her head.

"If you think that you've found a life-long love, Draco, I again offer my congratulations," she said. "But you said the same thing about your pretty young plaything Mary, as I recall. You introduced her to me as the future Mrs. Malfoy. And three weeks later she was gone."

"I didn't watch her for two years, Mother," Draco said. "I hardly had to work to charm her. Within a week, she was panting at my heels. Yes, she was fun for a while, but she wasn't what I wanted. Now I have what I want." He gave Harry a little sidelong glance and proud smile, and squeezed his arm.

Harry gave him another cautious glance. It had only taken him a little more than a week to give in to Draco. And he wasn't sure, still, what would happen in a few days, never mind three weeks. Wasn't it just as likely that Draco would grow bored with him, too, and want to drop him?

_And why the fuck am I worrying solely about that? _he thought with an irritation that startled him. _It's not as if my life would end if Draco sodding Malfoy decided that he didn't want to fuck me. And why am I standing here and letting both of them talk about me as if I have no stake in this?_

"I have no desire to quarrel with you, Mrs. Malfoy," he told her, and watched the way her eyes snapped back to him, aflame with dislike. _Yes, she blames me for this, and thinks that she would have her darling baby boy back if I were just gone. _With that thought in mind, Harry summoned every reserve of icy politeness that he could, and smiled at her cordially. "I don't want to cause arguments between you and your son, either. But, for now, I do rather want to stay, and I do consider myself Draco's- lover." The word stuck in his throat, but he forced it out. It wasn't as though he had anything better to call their arrangement. "What would make it possible for us to have a truce?"

Narcissa came a step forward. Harry could see a slight flush on her cheeks now, and decided that there was a soul underneath that icy exterior after all. One hand was clasped lightly around a white rose on her wrist, not actually shredding it, but making the petals crumple.

"There is no truce," Narcissa said, her voice low but piercing for all that. "Draco has responsibilities and traditions that you will never understand, and which _you_ cannot help him to fulfill. And his passions have always bloomed and died quickly. You are only another in a long line of lovers, Mr. Potter. The others, at least, understood the rules of our social circles and understood that no alliance with a Malfoy is permanent without the approval of Draco's one surviving parent. You have showed no awareness of that, nor sought my approval, and you are the least suitable target Draco has ever chosen to fix his affections on. Can you blame me for resenting you?"

Harry had to close his eyes for a moment. _Well. I suppose there's no truce possible after all, is there?_

But he couldn't help thinking Draco would be unhappy in the future if Harry and Narcissa argued. He might not feel it right now, in the first thrill of defying her, but it would come back to haunt him. And one thing Harry had not forgotten about being someone else's friend was the importance of that other person's happiness. It probably mattered more to him than otherwise, since Draco was the only person in the world he felt like that about right now.

"Put in that light, no, I can't," he said, forcing his eyes open and keeping his voice calm. "But I didn't mean to intrude into your life like this, Mrs. Malfoy. I was focused on making Draco let me go at first, and that- led me to speak unfortunately, even rudely, to you. Can we- "

"There is no starting over for something like this," said Narcissa, her voice brittle. "Draco knows what he _must_ do. He has put off his responsibilities simply because he can. He has played at being a child long after he should have become an adult. And you are not the person who can tame him, Mr. Potter, nor one he would yield his childishness for. If he tells you that, he has been lying to you."

Harry opened his mouth to reply, but realized he couldn't. He didn't know Draco that well. Draco had agreed to the time limit of a month. It was possible that the obsession would give out now that it had been fulfilled. He still didn't know what "responsibilities" she meant. So he didn't have good grounds to dispute with Narcissa.

Then Draco moved past him with deliberate steps, and Harry realized he stood in the room with someone who did.

Draco's voice was low, but it gained power as he spoke, proving volume had nothing to do with the ability to induce respect.

"You haven't explained why I should live the way you want me to, Mother, when I can, as you so eloquently put it, behave like a child if I wish to. And perhaps I have behaved like a child so far, but not for the reasons you want to believe in. The 'responsibilities' you champion have melted. Not even Mrs. Parkinson takes them seriously any more, and that alone is enough to tell me that they're outworn prejudices, not serious requirements of pure-blood life.

"And how dare, _how dare_, you say something like that to my face? To Harry's face? When you know how long I've wanted him? How many times you've tried to talk me out of this, and I haven't listened? When you know that I spoke of abandoning other lovers even before I took them? And I've told you only what I would do with Harry when I had him? Not spoken even once of giving him up?

"This is the end of it, Mother. He's the one I'm going to stay with. Or, at least, the one I'll try to make more than the casual toy of a moment. The first one I've ever felt this way about. You _knew_ that."

"Draco." Narcissa's voice sounded like snapping frost now. "You know that the Malfoy traditions- "

"They died with my father," Draco said imperiously. "I make my own now. And the first of them is deciding what I want to do, not living the way you wish me to. And the second is not putting up with your attempts to sabotage my life any longer. You are not welcome in Malfoy Manor for the next month, Mother. I know that you have a small house that Father left you specifically in London. Go and stay there."

Narcissa was truly white-faced now, her skin pale as salt. Then her eyes traveled over Draco's shoulder and sought out Harry's, and he could see the hatred flawing them like the one crack in a perfect mirror. She blamed him for this. She was never going to forgive him.

At least, it looked like that right now. It was possible to salvage the situation if they acted quickly, perhaps. Harry tugged on Draco's arm. "Draco- "

Draco turned to face him so suddenly that Harry stumbled back. "No," Draco said, fiercely, but not loudly. "_No_. She's done this for years, Harry, and she won't give up. I've given her chances, but this is ridiculous."

"She's your mother," Harry whispered.

"And you're mine," Draco said. "You're not used to having someone who fights for you, Harry, who puts you first. Well, now you have one. You'll learn better, in the end." He cupped his hand around Harry's chin and tilted his head back, taking his mouth in a languid kiss.

Harry heard the sounds of Narcissa leaving the room. And, in the back of his mind, he heard his own voice squealing this was all a mistake, that Draco would come to his senses in a few days and regret this horribly.

He found that he couldn't concentrate on those sounds, that he leaned into the kiss and sighed as if he really did believe that it was going to be all right, as if he really did believe that he was the most important person in the world to Draco.


	25. Responsibility and Irresponsibility

_Chapter 25—Responsibility and Irresponsibility_

"I wondered," said Theresa softly, "if you would admit the truth of my observations after you ran away from me last time."

Harry's hatred of being here had still not changed. Even if Theresa had precipitated, inadvertently, the crisis that led to him turning his back on the past and becoming more a part of Draco's life, she'd _meant_ to do something quite different. So he could not eye her with quite as much trust and belief as Draco seemed to want him to.

He looked at her with what he knew was a wary expression, and inclined his head in a short nod. "To an extent," he said. "I agree that I haven't thought about my grief for my friends in too long, and that needs to change. And the life I was living would probably have resulted in self-destruction and pain for others sooner or later."

Theresa gazed at him with a quietly troubled expression. "Have you thought about your future at all?" she asked. "Other friendships that you can form?"

Harry pushed his hand across his forehead. "I don't see how I can do that," he said. _Some things, I can be honest about. It's not that damaging. _"Other people's perceptions of me are always going to be clouded by the perceptions of who I _was_. I don't know anyone who would try to befriend me for some other reason than my being Harry Potter. If I did find someone like that, I don't know how I could trust or believe their assertions."

"What's different about me and Draco?"

"I accept that Healers want to help me." _Busybodies who should go and help someone else, _he left unsaid, since he thought Theresa would take that from his tone. "And Draco _hated_ me. That he would come back and want to help me all these years later, after my fame has faded—it doesn't smack of wanting to bask in my glory. He would have come after me when we were both still seventeen if he wanted that."

"So, if we can overcome our preconceptions of you, why can't other people do it?" Theresa gently pushed.

Harry shrugged. He hated being led into traps. "I don't know. I just—how would I start a friendship like that, anyway? Walk up to someone else and ask to shake his hand and talk about Quidditch with him?"

"Would that be so hard?"

"Yes," said Harry. "I don't know anything about Quidditch now."

Theresa laughed, though Harry couldn't figure out why. At least her laughter, like her tone, was gentle enough that he could ignore some of the more stinging implications. "You could find out," she said. "I still want to know what the difficulty is, Harry. Why are you so unwilling to reach out? Why do you want other people to come to you?"

"I don't _want_ them to come to me," Harry protested, though he supposed it was as good a summation as any of his behavior in the past few years. If someone had made an effort as determined as Draco's, he might have admitted that person into his friendship. "I want to be left alone."

"Why?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Now you're becoming ridiculous. You _know_ why. You've marked me yourself as someone who grieved too much to let other people into his life, who was worried about getting hurt. You know, all the other reasons that can apply to every grieving person."

Theresa gazed steadily at him. "What I'm more worried about, Harry, is whether _you_ accept that as the truth about yourself."

"Does that matter?"

Her gaze grew incredulous. Harry shifted and looked down. "All right, yes, it matters," he muttered. "But I don't like thinking about it. I know that I had a problem. I'm working it out. Does it matter whether I think I have a problem for the same reasons you do, or for another?"

"I was saying something in our last conversation that I fear you didn't fully accept," Theresa said. "We cannot be the only relationships in your life, Harry. Who else will you let in? Will you make other friends? I do not wish to isolate you with Draco and have you depend solely on each other. If you will forgive what remains, at the moment, an uneducated guess about your previous life, it seems as if the destruction of your best friends destroyed the primary relationships in your life. The other Weasleys were important to you, of course, and so was Remus Lupin. But take Ron and Hermione away, and you were crippled."

"And so you're asking what happens if some crisis like that destroys you and Draco," Harry summed up flatly, feeling his heart drum anxiously against his ribcage. _People are in danger from being around me. Even now. Still._

"I would venture that Mr. Malfoy is more important to you at the moment than I am." Theresa gave him a faint smile. "But essentially, Harry, yes. I'd like to see you push yourself, keep growing, and have casual friends as well as ones so dear to you that there is no one left to care about you when they die."

"Perhaps that's simply the style of friendship I thrive on." Harry rose and paced back and forth across the room. He was trying to keep his wandless magic under control, really he was. Only small tremors ran through the chairs so far. "I did cry out my grief a few days ago. You would recommend that, wouldn't you?"

"After our conversation?" Theresa asked carefully.

Harry swung to face her. "_Yes._"

"It's a first step." Theresa folded her hands in her lap. "What I am most interested in seeing from you, Harry, is a commitment to further growth. More friendships. More talking about your past. So far, dragging everything from you is like pulling a sore tooth from a bear. I fear that if I gave up on pushing you, you would declare what you had so far enough of a victory."

"What if I want it to be?" Harry turned away from her.

"You're still awfully uncomfortable," Theresa said. "Your relationship with Draco isn't what I would call balanced or healthy. He doesn't deserve that, and I don't think you would want him to have all the work of healing you. Nor, for that matter, would you want to remain in this broken and half-shattered state."

"I—" Harry stared at his hands, deeply ashamed. It was true that he didn't want to put more of a burden on Draco.

But he was also resenting, more and more, the way Theresa approached healing him. Yes, she only wanted to help him; that, he still accepted. But she was acting more and more as if she also wanted to mold him. Harry couldn't accept that. He'd survived the Dursleys unchanged. He'd survived Voldemort's attempts to destroy him physically, and then emotionally. He wasn't about to turn into a good little toy for a Healer who didn't even _know_ him.

"I've progressed further than you think," he muttered, still staring at his hands, not thinking about what he was saying. "I did cry my grief out, which I was _sure_ would please you, and I'm Draco's lover now—"

"_What_?"

Harry clamped his mouth shut, his ears burning. He was sure that Draco was watching the conversation—unless his tour to make sure Narcissa had _really_ left and not secreted herself in some obscure room of the Manor had gone on longer than he thought it would—and he didn't want to reveal that piece of information if Draco hadn't wanted to reveal it yet.

But it was out there now, and, against all the odds, Theresa sounded horrified.

"What?" Harry asked, drawing provocation around him like the cloak of a jaded teenager and raising his eyes to meet hers defiantly. "You wanted me to start advancing my relationship with him, didn't you?"

Theresa drew her wand without answering. Harry tensed, Auror reflexes firing, but she only murmured the incantation to the Soul's Mirror spell, and then leaned forward and stared hard at it. The bond pointing towards Draco, Harry could see now, was a deep and vibrant blue.

"Oh, Harry," said Theresa, sitting back and regarding him with wide eyes. "Was that such a good idea? You should have established a friendship with Draco first, before you began a sexual relationship."

"I assure you," said Harry, bristling, "he didn't force me."

Theresa shook her head. "I'm not saying he did. I don't think that's in him. But I wonder if it was the best for your mental health to have this happen now."

Harry shut his eyes. His emotions were racing around inside his head, colliding again, and the tremor in the chairs had grown more pronounced. "I don't understand," he said. He was proud of himself. His voice was only a little high-pitched. "I thought I should try to deepen the bond with him. We both wanted it. It was a release of emotions that made me actually _happy_ for once. And now it turns out to be just as wrong as everything else I've done?"

No reply, and at last Harry forced his eyes open and looked at her. Theresa was examining him thoughtfully.

"I don't want to force you into emotional revelations you'd rather not make before you're ready for them, Harry." Her voice was carefully neutral. "I'm not trying to mother you, nor smother you. But I do think that—well, that I have more commitment to this than you do. If you don't tell me the truth, I can't help you. If you would like, I can fetch another Healer from St. Mungo's—"

"No," Harry snapped instantly.

"Harry, you need to talk about this—"

"_Why_?" Harry tossed his head. "I've talked about my grief for my friends, and I've done some of the things that you recommended. I'll work on strengthening my friendship with Draco. I'll promise to seek out more friends like a good little boy. I'll do what you want. I've _done_ what you want."

"You still don't think this really matters," Theresa said. "You still want to fight me every time the word talking is mentioned. You've still told me nothing about your childhood. What little I know about your life comes from educated guesses and newspapers, and we know those aren't reliable when it comes to you. Why are you so reluctant to talk to me?"

Harry gritted his teeth. He didn't want to respond, but maybe this was another moment, as with Draco, when he had to seize his courage in both hands and jump off the cliff of doubt. Besides, this time he was actually angry enough that it didn't hurt much.

"I feel as if you're trying to change me," he said. "And I don't like that. And I don't—I don't _like_ attention." He shook his head and ran his hand through his fringe, deliberately baring his scar. "This gave me more than my fair share of it. I'd just achieved a state where most people comfortably ignored my existence, and then you had to change it. And now you want to drag out my childhood and look at it as if you're actually interested in it. Why?"

"Because I _am_ interested in it." Theresa's smile widened back across her face again. "And you can assign that to being an interfering Healer, if you want, but it's more than that. I think you need help, Harry. I think your childhood would be interesting in and of itself, because it would help me better understand a man I'm coming to admire and like very much."

Harry watched her, looking for signs of a lie. She didn't alter her posture, or her earnest stare. He at least had to allow for the possibility she was serious, the way he had to allow for the possibility that he really was the most important person in the world to Draco.

And, really, would it be so bad to talk to her about the Dursleys? Harry was sure he'd grown scar tissue over those wounds long ago. It wouldn't be nearly as hard to talk about them as it would be about the Weasley Massacre. He could even make the stories amusing if he tried.

"All right," he said, with a sigh, and sat down again. "You have to understand that my uncle and aunt were Muggles—my aunt was my mum's sister—and they believed they'd successfully distanced themselves from all magic. Then I ended up on their doorstep after my parents died. They didn't really want or like me. That's essential to understand, because otherwise what they did isn't comprehensible."

* * *

Draco had felt many emotions while Harry talked to Theresa—exasperation, pity, fondness, and the desire to invade the room, grasp Harry's shoulders, and shake him until his teeth rattled. 

But now, as he listened to Harry rather calmly, and sometimes even with a laugh, and only a twist of bitterness here and there, detail his childhood with the Dursleys, he felt himself begin to burn with rage.

"—didn't have friends until I went to Hogwarts, because Dudley chased away the children who could have been friends with me—"

"—slept in a cupboard under the stairs until they realized I was a wizard. Then they were a bit frightened of me, I think. And they had reason to be. My wandless magic still tended to burst out when I was enraged. When Dudley's aunt Marge came to visit—"

"—usually spent most of my time during the summers in Dudley's second bedroom, and there were bars on the window—"

"—no, I didn't know about magic until Hagrid—he worked for Dumbledore, he was a half-giant—told me. I remember thinking I wouldn't be any good at it during my first year and would have to leave Hogwarts, but at least they might let me live with Hagrid and help him keep the grounds—"

On and on it went, moments that Draco hadn't known anything about. Harry never talked about his Muggle relatives, never mentioned them in the papers, and never seemed to attract questions about them, either. Few people in the wizarding world were concerned with Muggles, of course, and for good reason.

But _this_.

This.

Draco stared at Harry through the enchanted window as he spoke, and recognized the healed-over scars on him. It was no wonder that Harry still sought to rely on himself, that he couldn't comprehend, on a basic level, that anyone would ever be interested in him for himself instead of for what he could do, and that he valued so deeply Draco's relationship with Narcissa. He'd chosen the tactic of shutting himself off from the world after the Weasleys died because it was, apparently, what had allowed him to survive his childhood.

Draco wanted to know if the Muggles were alive. If they hadn't left the country, then he could eventually find them.

It would take some time and a little work, because his contacts in the Muggle world were few and far between, and he certainly couldn't mention it to Harry. But he could at least find them. Know their faces. Know where they lived, and if they imagined themselves comfortably distant from the magical world even now.

And then—

Well. He would know, that was all.

The protectiveness surged up the scale in him. It was a miracle that Harry had survived at all, let alone that he'd had the courage to still fight the most powerful Dark Lord in centuries and then survive his friends' loss and then talk to Theresa, and Draco, about this.

And Draco had less intention than ever of letting someone like that go.


	26. Getting to Know You

_Chapter 26- Getting To Know You_

"What's the matter, Draco?" Harry had to frown when he stepped out of the room where he'd met with Theresa. Draco's face was sharply pink, with imprints all over his face as if someone had slapped him to make him flush. And yet, if he'd been that angry, Harry couldn't see him holding back. He'd have interrupted the session to tell Harry all about the source of his anger.

"Nothing for you to worry about right now," Draco said, voice clipped, and took his arm. "Do you want to eat in the kitchen, my room, your room? Or would you like to see the wing of rooms that I had Trippy redecorate for you?"

Harry felt his ears burn. "You were _serious_ about that?"

Draco turned to him so suddenly he nearly stumbled. "Of course, Harry," he said, and his voice was too soft, as though Harry had done something remarkable, rather than asked a very simple question. "I meant what I said about being there for you no matter what, that you're the most important person in the world to me right now."

Harry quelled the impulse to back off a bit. From the way Draco's eyes shone, he really _had_ meant it, and Harry would not talk him out of meaning it. And whatever anger the session with Theresa had inspired in him, he didn't seem inclined to take it out on Harry. That was reassuring.

"Um." Harry shook off the impulse to ask what had happened. Draco would, presumably, tell him if he wanted Harry to know. Besides, Harry was hoping to ask some different questions later, and he didn't want to put Draco off with an irrelevant one now. "See the wing that Trippy redecorated, I suppose."

Draco nodded as if that were a good choice- though Harry was sure he could have said anything at this point, and Draco would have supported it- and dragged him towards a hallway they hadn't taken before. Harry shook his head, and decided to watch for the chance to ask Draco his questions.

It had occurred to him, as he spoke to Theresa, that she knew an awful lot about him, and Draco likewise. But Harry hardly knew anything about them.

Well. In Theresa's case, that was by choice. Harry was growing more and more irritated with her. He was going to convince Draco to get rid of her if he could. He would rather talk to Draco by this point. It would be much preferable, at least in his biased view.

But he should know more about Draco. And at this point, he wanted to know more, and not just to equalize their knowledge of each other. This was the man he had allowed to share intimacies with him that he'd thought he'd never share with another person again. Harry's dominant impression of him was still from the Hogwarts years, countered by just flashes from the last few days.

He wanted to know. He needed to know.

But he didn't know how open Draco would be to talking about his own recent past, so Harry had to approach the subject carefully.

* * *

Draco could tell Harry was working himself up to something. The sneaking, sidelong glances and the way he kept drawing in his breath and then releasing it again proclaimed Harry's curiosity as clearly as a sign around his neck could.

But Draco was also content to wait. When he flung open the door to Harry's new set of apartments, Harry seemed content, too. His jaw literally went slack. Draco chuckled, and then reached across Harry's chest, grasped his jaw, and tilted it back into place.

"Surprise," he said lightly.

Harry's dazed eyes took in the hallway around him, and he shook his head as if denying that this could belong to him. "Draco..."

Draco held up a commanding hand. "It's yours, Harry, and I'll not hear a word against it." He would have felt glad in giving this to Harry at any time, but just now his pleasure was heightened by the knowledge that Harry's relatives had given him nothing but mental scars during his childhood. He pushed Harry gently in front of him, though he kept one hand on his shoulder, because he didn't really want to stop touching him. "What do you think?"

Harry just shook his head again. Draco would take the awed silence on his face as enough of an answer.

Trippy had read Draco's notes about Harry, and used that knowledge as well as her own innate magic to prepare this wing. The hallway in front of them, which joined all the rooms together as a central meeting point, soared more than twenty feet above their heads, gratifying Harry's liking for the open air. The walls were a deep, dusky gold, an imitation of the Gryffindor House colors combined with the fact that Harry seemed to prefer more subdued colors in his own flat right now. The floor was bare stone, like the floors at Hogwarts, but warming spells kept the natural chill from seeping up into even bare feet. And rippling patterns dominated the ceiling, gentle shades of blue and green that only the bright torches on the walls could have revealed, patterns that could have been the edges of palm fronds or ocean waves. Draco had noticed Harry halting to stare at jewelry or pictures that had patterns like that in the windows of shops on Diagon Alley, though he doubted Harry was aware of it himself.

"It's _beautiful_," Harry breathed.

Draco nodded, then steered Harry over to the first door, made of paneled chestnut. The room inside was a replica of the bedroom where Harry slept now, but more personalized, with robes like the ones he usually favored draped on the bed and the blankets even softer and warmer; they really _would_ embrace Harry like a pair of arms when he lay down in them. Draco planned on being here with him much of the time, of course, but the blankets would compensate when they'd had an argument or Harry wanted to be alone. And there was a window in one corner of the room overlooking the Quidditch Pitch, never mind that this part of the house didn't face that way.

"It's an enchanted window, isn't it?" Harry asked, stepping away from Draco to run one hand around the panes of cut glass.

Draco nodded, then realized Harry wasn't looking at him and cleared his throat. "Yes, but it shows a real view. You'll be able to see in a moment what the weather's like and whether you want to fly that morning or not."

Harry spun around and gave him one of those dazzling smiles, seemingly energized beyond what Draco could have hoped to achieve with most gifts. Draco silently enjoyed those shining eyes and slightly parted lips. He hoped to see them in other contexts soon enough.

Abruptly, though, Harry halted and gazed at him seriously. Then he sighed, and said, "I was hoping I could do this subtly, but it wouldn't do any good, anyway. I'm a horrible liar."

Draco smothered a smile. "Yes," he murmured. "You're not bad at ignoring things, though." _You ignored your broken heart for eleven years, the fact that no one loved you for ten..._ But he stopped that line of thought, because he would grow bitter and angry, and he didn't want Harry to think he was angry at him. "What was it you wanted to do? Say? Ask?"

"I feel as if I barely know you," said Harry bluntly, folding his arms as if to ward off a chill. "Theresa said- well, you heard her. She doesn't think we should use sex to substitute for friendship."

"Oh, yes," Draco drawled. The mention of the Dursleys had so angered him that he'd forgotten about that part of Theresa's "advice." "And so you want to stop having sex for a while?"

"You already agreed to wait," Harry pointed out. "But, really, I want to know more about you, Draco. I know why you're giving me these gifts, why you watched me for two years, and- why you defied your mother for me." The shaky little breath he'd taken before those words told Draco he still couldn't quite believe Draco's reasoning on the subject. That was all right, though. He'd believe it before Draco was done with him. It would be an article of faith for him. "But what about your childhood? What have you done since you were acquitted? Who are your friends? What- what lovers did you have before me?"

Draco blinked. A small squirm of warmth opened up in his stomach, which he made an effort to close off. He was supposed to be protective and interested in keeping Harry from memories of the Dursleys, not so pleased that Harry had _asked_ about him. He was not a girl.

Still, he couldn't deny that he wanted to answer the questions. It would have been very easy for Harry to simply lie back and let Draco take care of him, but he was reaching out instead. Draco motioned for them both to sit on the bed, and Harry did, frowning a bit as he realized how warm and soft it was. Draco folded his hands in his lap and did his best to speak truthfully.

"My childhood wasn't as bad as yours, Harry. Never think that. But it wasn't as warm and fully of family as the Weasleys' were, either. My parents treated me sometimes as an heir, sometimes as a son, sometimes as an extension of my father. I received lessons in manners, lessons in wizarding history, and lessons in prejudice- of course. I got whatever toys I wanted. The very few times I disappointed my parents, they simply stopped speaking to me for a day or so."

Harry sat up straight, his spine, his face, his posture, even his _hair_ seeming to radiate anger. "That's a horrible way to treat a child."

"And what the Dursleys did to you wasn't?" Draco asked, because he _had_ to know. Harry had done what he could to make the Dursleys' neglect sound like something that had been over long ago, even something that amused him, but that was in front of Theresa. Draco thought Harry might be a bit more honest with him.

Harry's eyes darted sideways, and then he flipped a hand, as if urging away a pesky Crup. "We were talking about you, Draco, not about me," he said lightly. "Isn't it about time that we spent some time talking about you? There are two people in this relationship, after all."

_Very neatly played, Harry, _Draco thought with grudging admiration. Harry might be a horrible liar, but he could sidestep with the best of them. For now, though, he let it go, since the subject seemed to make Harry so uncomfortable.

Besides, he wasn't ready to reveal his revenge plans for the Dursleys, yet. He had the feeling Harry would protest, or maybe even try to put himself between the Muggles and Draco the way he'd put himself between Draco and Wormwood's curse. It wasn't worth arguing about.

"I was happy," said Draco. "Well. Most of the time. I know you think it's a horrible way to treat a child, Harry, and compared to the Weasleys, it probably was. But you have to understand, that was the same way my friends' parents treated them. I never thought my father and mother _should_ have been different. Actually, I preferred being left alone or with my tutors and the house-elves most of the time. When my parents paid the most attention to me, we were either in contexts where they wanted me to impress someone, like a dinner party, or my mother was having one of her protective bouts. I felt smothered when she did that." Draco retained unfond memories of being pressed against his mother's bosom while she sobbed into his hair, the first time he'd gone flying alone and nearly fallen off his broom. He'd wriggled and squirmed to get away. Granted, he'd been only seven at the time, but even then, he had a fastidiousness about who touched him, and his mother wasn't his favorite person.

Sometimes, Draco thought it was a miracle that he'd grown up to enjoy sex as much as he had. His childhood wasn't one to encourage much closeness.

"Who were your friends?" Harry asked, drawing Draco's attention back to the mingled past and present he would rather explore than memories of his past alone. He'd dwelt enough on those before to satisfy anyone sane, surely.

"Most of the people I knew in Slytherin," said Draco. "Pansy. Theodore Nott, though he lived a fair distance from us and I didn't get to see him often. Blaise Zabini, when his mother wasn't off in another country with some new husband of hers. Greg and Vincent, of course. And a few other people- I once knew a girl named Adelaide- but they either didn't go to Hogwarts or their parents only brought them to some dinner parties. Like Mrs. Parkinson's house, for example. We spent quite a bit of time there." He smiled faintly. Pansy had always tried to lord it over them when they were at Gardenia's house, since it was _her_ home and _her_ toys, but most of them had realized quickly that they were smarter than she was, and besides, her mother could quietly puncture her bubble with one sidelong remark.

"And did you- " Harry hesitated, as if trying to think of how to approach the subject. "Did you like them? Sorry," he added, when Draco glanced hard at him. "But you never seemed to be close to Crabbe and Goyle in school, just ordering them around."

Draco nodded shortly, and tried to explain without the notion of Gryffindor-Slytherin rivalries bubbling up again. _He still thinks of you more as the boy from Hogwarts. He had no reason to change his mind about you, the way you did about him. _"It's more complicated than that, Harry. Yes, I liked them. But- I didn't _have_ to like them the way you liked Weasley and Granger. In fact, their parents would have been horrified by that, unless something happened that made their fathers more powerful than my father. It was just- knowing their place. They knew it, and it made them happy. Now, Theodore and Blaise- and Millicent, when I knew her- I had to be more careful around, because their families were more powerful and not as indebted to mine, and they were closer to me in intelligence. The biggest problem was Pansy, actually. Dumb enough not to notice boundaries that other people could work out or just obeyed, rich enough that you couldn't ignore her."

Harry ducked his head, but Draco saw the grin he was trying to hide. "What?" he demanded, because, of course, he _had_ to demand it.

Harry licked his lips, then said, "Would you ever admit that someone was smarter than you? Like- Hermione?" He spoke her name as if he were handling a broken limb, but he did say it. "Or would you just say that they were 'closer to you in intelligence'?"

"Why, Harry," Draco drawled, "I think you know me well enough to know the answer to that question."

"There are no people smarter than you, are there?" Harry finished with a little sigh.

"Precisely." Draco extended his hand. "And now, I think we've done enough reliving of the past for one day. We still have to see the rest of the wing, and we should have dinner. And then- well. We haven't been outside the Manor since Gardenia's concert. We could go see a play."

"Let me guess," said Harry, grasping Draco's wrist and letting himself be pulled up. "You have standing tickets to Snotty Pure-Blood Theater."

Draco soothed his irritation with the reminder that it was a _good_ thing Harry could talk back to him like this. "Change the name, and you have it essentially correct," he said. "We'll glamour you this time, though. We might run into a few people there who would be more inclined to be- talkative."

Harry nodded. "Can we get rid of Theresa?"

Draco blinked. "What?"

"I'm starting to not like her." Harry clenched his right hand once. "And, well, I think I'd rather talk about what I feel with you than with her."

Draco felt another small rush of warmth in his stomach at the idea. But he only rested a hand on Harry's back, with a casual, "We'll see."


	27. In Which Nothing Goes As Expected

_Chapter 27- In Which Nothing Goes As Expected_

Harry resisted the urge to scrub at his forehead. It wouldn't actually damage the glamour Draco had cast on him- which made him look two inches shorter than he really was, with brown hair and blue eyes- but someone who saw him at the play might notice it, and wonder why he wasn't touching a visible wound or scar, and remember that Harry Potter used the exact same gesture, and then the game would spin out of control.

_Paranoid, Potter?_ he asked himself sharply, then shook his head. _Of course I am. That's a survival tactic for an Auror._

_And is that what you still are?_

Harry wrinkled his forehead. Of course he was, even now. He would- change things, but he couldn't imagine changing his profession. He needed to work so that he could continue making a living, and he'd trained hard to become an Auror. Even assuming he could find something he liked better, would he really have the time at this point in his life to train to fit it?

"Ready, Harry?"

Draco had entered the room behind him. Harry nodded and turned away from the mirror, pausing when he saw an amused smirk curling the edges of Draco's mouth. "What?" He brushed self-consciously at the sleeves of the robes he'd chosen. They were dark blue, and formal, and the kind of clothes he'd worn the last time he'd been at an entertainment, guarding a high-ranking Ministry official from threats of kidnapping. "Did I put some kind of stain on them already?"

"No," said Draco easily, and held out his arm. Though he didn't understand Draco's mania for the gesture, Harry accepted it, intertwining his arm with the other man's. "I was simply thinking that _I'll_ know who you are under the glamour, but no one else will. So I have the pleasure of looking at you all to myself tonight."

Harry rolled his eyes, unable to help it. "You _are_ possessive."

"And don't forget it." Draco's hand gripped his elbow a little harder. "Once you do start changing the way you act, people will want you for more than your Auror training, Harry. I fully expect you to remember my possessive streak." He appeared to catch himself. "If we're still dating by then, of course."

Harry ignored the last few words. He frankly didn't know himself what would happen from moment to moment with Draco, and he preferred not to think how permanent their arrangement would be. He knew utter stupidity when he heard it, though, and he could refute it with a few words.

"You're not going to have to fight anyone for me, Malfoy. Honestly. I know what I look like- yes, _without_ the glamour- and I told you, the allure of killing Voldemort has faded, since I didn't take advantage of it. You won't have a chance to get jealous."

Draco looked at him with solemn exasperation, as if he would like to say something but Harry was being too dumb to make sense of it however he phrased the words. Harry scowled at him. _He doesn't need to tell me what I look like. I already told him I know it._

"Still some work to do," Draco said, as if _that_ were supposed to make sense, and then pulled Harry close to Apparate them. Harry told himself not to enjoy the closeness that much. _Damn sensitive skin._

* * *

Draco had meant what he said. If he and Harry were an established couple- as, in the future, they would be- there was nothing he would have liked more than to appear with him and be subjected to gawks and stares of envy and longing. But Harry was still healing, and Draco definitely didn't want the Manor besieged with former lovers, reporters from the _Daily Prophet_, and Ministry officials who wanted to know who was lying in St. Mungo's under the name of Harry Potter. So he would take the lesser pleasure of being the only one who knew the wizard on his arm and what he really looked like.

Even the glamour couldn't make Harry less than fascinating to watch, though. And the drape of the dark blue robes did nothing to hide the strength of his stride, or the alert way his head turned.

Draco smiled slightly when he saw glances of envy and longing following them anyway as they made their way into the theater. _I should have known._

The theater itself had once had a formal name, but the battered letters carved in the stone had been worn by centuries of wind and rain; the wizards Draco knew called it the Half-Globe. The stage was open to the sky, particularly useful for night scenes, but the seats were sheltered, and arranged in galleries that gradually mounted back and away from the stage. Draco had tickets for a perfect place, in the middle of a row and close enough to the stage that they could hear the words without having to rely on Eavesdropping Charms, while far enough away they wouldn't get a clumsy actor's spittle on them. Besides, the play was a good one, an alternate history that speculated what would have happened had Salazar Slytherin returned to Hogwarts after his unjustified casting-out. Draco was quite looking forward to seeing it, and to seeing Harry's indignant reaction to the portrayal of Godric Gryffindor.

They had just reached the row the tickets indicated when they met Blaise Zabini. Draco smiled when he saw him, sweeping up the stairs with his latest conquest, a small, honey-blonde witch whose skin shone milky pale next to Blaise's dark arm curved around her shoulders. He and Blaise were not always friends, but it was a pleasure trading barbs with him.

Blaise halted at the sight of him, and then raised a brow when he saw the glamoured Harry. His eyes moved to Draco's face, a question in them. He had been privy to Draco's plans, had known that he intended to go after Harry a little more than a week ago, and clearly wondered what had happened to that plan.

Draco barely kept from laughing. He did nod impressively, and say, "Blaise, I'd like you to meet Perry Faulter, my date for the evening."

Blaise received the message, of course. His eyes narrowed, but he only said, "I'm pleased to meet you, Perry."

Harry was busy glaring at Draco. He obviously didn't appreciate the name. Draco didn't care. The spark in his eyes was only a bit less intoxicating when they were blue instead of green.

Luckily, Harry kept his mind enough on the game to tear his gaze away from Draco's, and said, "Likewise, Blaise. Draco's mentioned you a time or two." He put a hand out, and though Blaise tried to crush his wrist, because he did that to everyone, Harry didn't flinch or struggle. He simply looked calmly into Blaise's face. Blaise drew his hand back appearing mildly impressed.

"Blaise?" giggled the witch on his arm, and tugged at his cloak. "Aren't you going to introduce me?"

Draco saw the stifled tension in Blaise's face. _This is a date his mother set him up with, then. _Gloriana Zabini was forever urging her son to find and marry a pure-blood witch of some kind. And Blaise did- for a few months, once almost a year, before he divorced them. He was growing almost as famous as his mother for sheer number of marriages, though luckily his spouses didn't die mysteriously.

Blaise's problem, Draco thought without sympathy, was that he was irrevocably attracted to blood traitors. First it had been the Weasley girl, and then the undistinguished daughter of a wizard who'd run away to marry a Muggle, and then a Mudblood witch with a Squib grandmother whom he'd actually wed and lived in bliss with for a whole week before his mother caught up with him.

"Draco, Perry," said Blaise, his voice bright and brittle, "this is Selina Bella-aloe."

"Soon to be Mrs. Zabini!" Selina said, and giggled like a pissed fairy as she extended one hand. A diamond ring sparkled on it.

_She'll last an even shorter time than the others, _Draco thought, and made his voice and smile cool as he responded, "Congratulations. I'm sure having the Zabini name for a short time will be an honor."

The silly bint didn't even catch on that he'd used the wrong preposition. She just burbled inanely at him, and then leaned on Blaise and feigned a yawn. "Can we sit down soon, Blaise? I'm just _so_ tired!"

Blaise, looking as if he'd agreed to go on a death march, nodded and escorted her towards their seats. Draco led Harry a few chairs further on and then sank back with a sigh. The seats in the Half-Globe were comfortable, with enough Cushioning Charms to make Draco wish he could spend half his days here, simply napping.

"Is _that_ what your social circles are like?"

Draco opened one eye. Yes, Harry looked disgusted, but that wasn't truly a surprise. Most of his peers' company would have seemed gauche after the concert in Mrs. Parkinson's home. "No, that's what Blaise is like," he said, "because his mother makes him. She's hoping to get a grandchild out of him one of these days. Poor Blaise." He said it without much conviction, though. Blaise should simply stand up to his mother. If he'd invest some of his own money, instead of letting her control all of it because he found the actual process of making money boring, then he'd be independent enough.

Harry was silent for long moments. Then he said, "I don't know if I could always look a witch like that in the face and make polite conversation."

Draco raised a hand and laid the back of it along his cheek. Harry's eyes half-lidded at once, which was pleasant. "You could spend as much or as little time around witches like her as you pleased, Harry. Our lives together will be yours, too, you know, and not all polite small talk with my friends. Besides, that one won't last long. Blaise will marry her, to satisfy his mother, but then he'll divorce her, and hopefully date someone more tolerable."

"Why does he put up with it?" Harry had his nose wrinkled, and didn't seem to realize that he'd pressed closer to Draco. Draco grinned in delight and casually put his arm around the back of Harry's seat.

"Because he's too lazy to make his own living," Draco responded. "He'll learn someday. I promise, Harry, not all of us are like that. I'd like you to meet Theodore Nott. You'd probably enjoy his company." _Or want to arrest him._ It was no secret to the right people that Theodore, clever and sophisticated though he was, had his nose buried deep in Dark magic.

"I might like that," Harry murmured, and then seemed to realize how close they were. He pulled away, flushing, and suddenly stood. "I need to use the loo," he announced.

Draco inclined his head. Harry had accepted gestures more intimate than that from him, but they were in a public place now. Draco had half-expected the retreat. "Come back in a few minutes, though. The play is about to start."

Harry nodded jerkily, and hurried down the aisle, murmuring regrets and excuses to people whose legs he kicked. Draco lounged in his own seat and admired the view of Harry's arse. He really should have been choosing Harry's robes for him all along.

* * *

Harry closed his eyes and splashed water across his face, then across his forehead, then across his face again for good measure.

_What am I doing?_

Sitting grinning into Draco's face like a love-struck fool was _not on_. And neither was cuddling up like a cat against his hands. Harry had- well, he had standards to maintain. They weren't precisely lovers. They'd had sex a grand total of once. He kept insisting that he wanted friendship before anything else, and yet what did he do? Let his body betray him.

Harry was determined not to do that. He'd fucked most of the rest of his life up, God knew. He didn't want to fuck this up, too, though perhaps it was inevitable, given his record.

A wave of hopelessness nearly made him close his eyes, but Harry ground his teeth and resisted the impulse. He _could_ do this. He _would_ do this. He might fuck things up, yes, but he wasn't going to give in and scuttle away out of sheer fear. He would make a _spectacular_ mistake if he made one, by God.

He stepped out of the loo and started to walk back towards the stage. Then he paused as he heard a low sound from a hallway that led towards their Apparition point. Cautiously, Harry turned to face it, while drawing his wand and simultaneously scolding himself for doing so. _There's no Dark wizard here, don't be ridiculous- _

Except that, when he peered into the hallway, there _was_ a young witch pressed back against the wall, her robes open and her face crimson with embarrassment and misery, while a much larger wizard held his hand over her mouth and opened her robes further.

Harry's blood boiled with rage. So this wasn't a Dark wizard; it was still the kind of person he trained and struggled to stop. He stepped into the hallway, his wand held out in front of him.

"_Lumos_," he said clearly, stealing the protection of the shadows. The wizard turned to stare at him, but kept the witch pinned against the wall, foiling Harry's first hope. Sometimes people like this simply ran away when caught. Courage wasn't a requirement for rape.

"Who the fuck are you?" snarled the wizard. He sounded a bit drunk.

"That doesn't matter," said Harry. He felt his magic swelling around him, and for once he welcomed it. The idiot's eyes darted sideways nervously as a wall rattled. "She obviously doesn't want to be doing this with you. Let her go."

"Go away, hero," the wizard said, and then turned and drew his own wand.

Harry reacted on instinct, casting a Glass Wall Charm between the witch and the wizard first, so that she wouldn't be hurt by any spells that might fly during the duel. _Then_ he cast the Body-Bind. Yes, a hex might have hurt him in the meantime, but he doubted it. After so long around painful magic, he knew how to resist most minor spells.

The wizard got off a spell, but Harry, with the roar of his blood and his magic in his ears, didn't hear it. It only seemed to settle on him with a faint tingle, anyway, so he ignored it and concentrated on petrifying the man. A moment later, his wand fell from his slack hand.

Harry wasted no time in casting _Finite_ on himself, after that. The tingling faded, and he moved forward to take down the Glass Wall Charm and help the girl out from under it.

She stared at him, eyes wide open in awe, and Harry abruptly realized what must have happened. In removing the spell the idiot had cast on him, he'd removed his glamour, too. His temper was up, and his level of power, even in simple spells, tended to rise with it.

"Harry Potter?" she whispered.

Harry winced, and tried to say something, but someone behind him repeated in astonishment, "Harry Potter?"

_Shit._


	28. Hero and Bastard

_Chapter 28- Hero and Bastard_

Draco frowned and looked towards the loo. The actors had started to take their places on stage. One would think that Harry would make an _attempt_ to arrive on time, even if he had found it fascinating to stare at his own face in the mirror.

Then he heard someone mutter excitedly, "_Harry Potter!_"

Draco's heart stuttered, and began beating again. He stood quickly, even as he tried to tell himself it _must_ be coincidence. Or perhaps someone had glamoured himself to look like Harry for the joke of it. Harry probably had no idea how frequently people still did that.

But, as he forced his way past the legs of those sitting in his row, and past glares and muttered complaints, he heard mentions of "saved a girl," and grimaced. Yes, that was his Harry, all right.

Now, hopefully, to reach him before someone remembered that Harry should have been lying in St. Mungo's in a coma from falling down the stairs outside his flat.

As soon as he reached the ascending tiers on the side of the theater, he began to vault up them, his heartbeat thick in his ears. He didn't want to be too late. He probably already was. There were probably too many people to _Obliviate._ And there were people who would stare at him, a former Death Eater, in Harry's company even now.

And then the simple, obvious solution occurred to him, and he slowed with a snort and a shake of his head.

Yes, granted, it would make some of Harry's decisions for him, but he always had the opportunity to reverse them at a later date if he so desired. And it was the only way to get them out of there without making a scene.

Draco sauntered up the last few steps and down the hallway that led towards the loo without a care in the world. Then he saw Harry in the center of a crowd of people, and managed, he thought, to look no more than mildly interested.

"Harry?" he called out, making several heads swing to him at once. "What are you doing here? The play started five minutes ago." And then he pretended to notice some telling detail- the wand gripped in Harry's hand, perhaps- and clucked his tongue. "Oh, dear. Please tell me that you weren't involved in saving a puppy's life again. That kind of thing _does_ get tedious, Harry, and surely conquering a Dark Lord is enough for one hero's lifetime."

* * *

Harry stared blankly at Draco. _What does he think he's doing? Does he really believe that he'll get us out of this with a few well-placed words and winks?_

From the gleam in his eyes, his smile full of disinterest and exasperation and fondness, it seemed that he did.

Harry didn't think he could pull off his part of the deception, though. Lying had never been his forte, and there was no way he could pretend that saving the young witch didn't matter to him. It _did_, and anyone who knew anything about him would know that he'd spent the past eleven years proving that.

And then he remembered that he was good at ignoring inconvenient truths, even if he wasn't good at lying. He doffed what armor he could, the pretense that these people didn't matter to him as much as some argument with Draco, just as he'd once pretended that he'd completely overcome his grief for his friends and wouldn't shatter at a touch. Present the mask strongly enough, and few people would poke it to find out if it was false. Harry had certainly learned that, if nothing else, in his few years at the Ministry.

"_Draco_," he said, and hoped his voice was either a dignified protest or a whine. Either would lend credibility to their façade. "Must you? I was having fun, you know. More fun than seeing a stupid play would afford me." He tossed his head, a parody of the gesture he usually made when irritated, and put his wand back in his robe pocket. He could feel the heavy stares on the sides of his neck and face, and proceeded to ignore them. If he looked at one person, he would crack, or flush and start stammering, the way he used to do when someone caught him in a lie as a teenager. "And of course saving a life matters. It wasn't a puppy. It was- "

"Oh, I don't care," said Draco, with a languid wave of his hand, and then he came through the crowd to Harry by what seemed the simple process of not being where the elbows and the legs were. "What I care about is that you always find someone to rescue when we're at an event like this. You don't always manage to lose the glamour, though. That's a new level of carelessness even for you." He halted in front of Harry and folded his arms with a glare, every inch of him radiating petulant sullenness.

Harry built the lie with him; he might not know exactly what Draco had in mind, but his words gave enough of a handle for him to hold. "Just compensating for your own prissiness, Draco," he said easily. "Inside the Manor, I can't even save a vase from falling, because you're there squawking like a hen. So I might as well get to use some _real_ magic outside the walls."

Draco's eyes sparked, and Harry knew he was going to pay for the hen crack. He didn't care. He felt far too good. This was exactly the kind of prank that he might have played with Ron or Hermione- well. A friend. Playing off each other, letting their words flow around one another's, making them into a team that flourished against the world. The world against them.

Harry hadn't known, until this moment, how much he missed that aspect of friendship.

Draco took a step forward, and then reached out, grasping Harry's hand and pulling him in. A moment later, he had pressed his lips quite firmly to Harry's. He didn't use his tongue- probably because they were in public, Harry thought, and even Draco recognized certain limits- but he made the kiss fierce anyway, and a silent demand. Harry gave in and lent their deception even more credibility by reacting like a lover, or he pulled away, embarrassed, and had to tell the truth.

Thoughts chasing themselves wildly through his head, Theresa's warnings and his own confused sexual response to Draco among them, Harry moaned, or, rather, let the moan that had built in the center of his chest out. Draco snarled in satisfaction, though Harry doubted anyone else could hear the sound; he felt it because, by this point, Draco had pressed their bodies together. When he finally drew back from the kiss, he had a feral look in his eyes.

Harry felt it call heat from his own body in response, and not all- solely- the heat of shame or embarrassment. He didn't remove his eyes from Draco. He didn't think he could.

"I hate it when you end arguments like that," he murmured. His tongue, not only his lips, felt swollen.

Draco smirked at him. "That's half the fun of doing it," he replied smoothly.

Someone in the staring crowd finally found her voice, an older witch with gray hair whom Harry saw clutching her wand with shaking hands. "See here, Harry Potter's in a coma at St. Mungo's- "

Draco snorted, grabbed Harry, one hand on his hip and one arm around his shoulders, and turned him firmly, so that Harry rested against him, back to chest. Harry felt the hands tighten, and knew better than to try to break away, so he settled for looking mulish while Draco spoke as he might to an extremely slow child. "And why do you think we did that? Harry gets little enough rest as it is, working as an Auror. If he announced he was taking a holiday, the press would follow him and hound him until they discovered his hiding place. We thought we could use this to make sure he got some time away from his job _and_ didn't attract a crowd of admirers." Draco swept the group in front of him with a glance that, Harry saw, made several people flinch. "I see that goal failed."

"He saved my life," a voice said, and Harry turned his head to see the young witch who'd first recognized him coming out of the hallway, her robes now more demurely buttoned. Her face was pale, and her words shook, but she still spoke up, gamely. "A man I'd just met was trying to rape me. Harry Potter heard me, and protected me, and put a Body-Bind on him so that he'd stay still. He's in the corridor behind me, if you want to look." She turned and fixed Harry with a look of worship that made him uncomfortable. It was exactly the expression he managed to avoid most of the time when he worked as an Auror. He acted so calm and professional that the victims he worked with could accept him as someone there to help them, and not a hero, nor a celebrity. But she saw him as, well, _him_, and Harry could feel the dull flush climbing his cheeks. "Thank you," she whispered.

Harry nodded in acknowledgment, and then tried to shift away from Draco. Those hands tightened again, and Draco leaned down and breathed into Harry's ear. Harry closed his eyes, half-helpless with the feeling. His cock was twitching. God, he didn't want to get hard now, in the midst of everyone.

* * *

Draco was getting more and more pissed off.

Oh, of course he'd wanted to walk openly with Harry at his side in front of the wizarding world someday, and the stares would be half the fun. Of course he knew that openly dating Harry would always attract attention. If he hadn't wanted that, he should have become obsessed with someone who hadn't killed a Dark Lord and saved thousands of people from death or slavery.

But he hadn't wanted it just yet. More to the point, he hadn't wanted people to stare at Harry like this: in devouring curiosity, as if he were an ornament for their enjoyment, or shock, as if he had no right to live in Malfoy Manor and date Draco because he had a reputation to maintain.

He wanted to get out of here, and now.

"It seems that our enjoyment of the play is not to be, alas," he said, and his voice was cool enough to make the older witch, who'd opened her mouth, snap it shut again. Draco took the moment to glare at her. She looked like his mother would in another few years, the way she sourly pinched her lips shut. "Well. We've weathered worse crises before. Shall we go home, Harry, and leave them to stare at each other?"

Harry glared at him over his shoulder. Draco supposed his possessive grip was becoming a bit much, and using Harry's sensitivity to touch against him was a dirty trick, but he didn't care. That chit had a crush on Harry, he was certain of it. Draco wouldn't allow that.

"No," said Harry.

Draco blinked, and came back to the present. It hadn't occurred to him that Harry, Harry who hated crowds and was blushing furiously after that kiss, would want to stay. "What?"

"That criminal needs to be reported and taken to the Ministry," said Harry, his voice cool. "I know that you don't like me working during holidays, _dear_, but it has to happen. There are procedures to be followed." He nodded to the girl gazing at him with star-dazzled eyes and lowered his voice. "And I have to find someone to talk to her. She might not feel the need right now, but she was almost _raped_. You don't just let that go. She'll need help."

Draco stared at him in silence for long moments, then shook his head. _God, he has to help everyone but himself, doesn't he?_

"If you go back into the Ministry, Harry," he whispered, also keeping his voice low, "do you honestly think they'll let you leave again without demanding to know where you were? And you'll answer them. And they'll know that you're lying. And then they'll tug you back into their world, and I don't think you'll re-emerge again, not without my storming the Department of Magical Law Enforcement."

Harry blinked. He probably hadn't considered his own temptation. Well, that was all right. Draco had, and he wouldn't let Harry be exposed to it.

Of course, being a Gryffindor, Harry had shrugged that danger off a few instants later. "There are certain procedures that need to be followed," he repeated, this time raising his voice high enough to include the crowd. "And I won't change that just because you don't like it." He leveled his eyes with Draco's, and they sparked. "I've told you that before," he added in a warning voice.

It _did not help_ that the sight of Harry angry almost instantly made Draco drunk with arousal and the urge to Apparate them both to a bed. He took a deep breath to control himself and said, "Fine. If you really feel this way, Harry- "

Harry nodded smugly, seeming to think he'd won.

"Then I'll just have to come with you," Draco finished, and merrily ignored the horrified expression on Harry's face. "You may have to work, but you don't have to abandon my company."

"You can't do this," Harry hissed at him.

"Yes, I can." Draco examined his fingernails for a moment, then looked at him from half-lidded eyes. "I've worked too hard to help you, Harry, and to have you. I'm not going to lose you again."

Harry bared his teeth. "It'll be fine," he said. "I'll return to the Manor in a few hours, when I'm done with the paperwork."

"No."

"If you would just- "

"No," Draco repeated.

"You _have_ to- "

"No," Draco said a third time, and enjoyed the way the high, deep, beautiful red flush spread across Harry's cheeks.

Harry trembled with rage, but Draco knew he couldn't explode with it; it would mean destroying the façade they'd built up for the crowd, and the only way to escape intense public scrutiny for right now. Finally, he gave a tense nod, and then turned away to attend to the young witch. Draco caught his wrist gently and let himself be pulled along for the ride.

Harry was obviously trying to slip into professional Auror mode, but the constant annoyed glances he darted sidelong at Draco were rather ruining the effect.

_That's good, _Draco thought. _I said I wouldn't lose him. I won't._

_Besides, it will be fun to see the office where he works in the light of day._


	29. Home Again, Home Again

_Chapter 29- Home Again, Home Again_

The moment he stepped into the Ministry, Harry felt as if he'd come home.

The atmosphere of the Ministry was like no other place he'd ever been. There was an air of inefficiency about it, of lost paperwork and people trying to break rules on the sly and laws being passed and forgotten in a breath. But Harry had always made himself a calm island of rightness and clear thinking in the midst of all that. And the contrast had buffered him, supported him.

And, above all, there was the knowledge that he was helping people. Nothing could compare to that.

He was there when the girl he'd saved, whose name turned out to be Linda, abruptly broke down and began to cry, just now realizing what had almost happened to her. He knelt down in front of her and began to speak softly. Draco stood at his shoulder and tried to ruin his good mood, but Harry didn't look back at him. He saw no one but Linda, talked to no one but her. He told her, over and over again, that the man who'd attacked her would spend at least a few months in a cell, and she would never have to see him again; newly developed spells the Aurors used would warn her if he came within a hundred feet of her, and she would be given the free use of an emergency Portkey for at least a year so that she could reach safety if for some reason she couldn't Apparate away from him. That had been an innovation Harry had thought of about five years ago. He was rather proud of it.

And her tears slowed and then stopped, and she took a few deep breaths and nodded. Harry pressed her hand, and stood there watching as a mediwitch from St. Mungo's escorted her gently away.

Then he filed the paperwork for the criminal he'd brought in, and talked quietly to Amelia Bones, who still headed the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. She wanted to know what was going on, of course. Harry told her the story he and Draco had prepared, and watched her eyebrows creep almost to her hairline. He knew she didn't believe him.

But he had always worked well for her, and he'd never done anything like this before, and it seemed that Madam Bones was just relieved to know that one of her Aurors wasn't lying in a coma at St. Mungo's. So that part all went well enough, and Harry got past the awkwardness that might have resulted had she chosen to question him about his so-called relationship with Draco.

The awkward part came when Amelia cleared her throat, leaned forward over the desk, and fixed him with a stern gaze. "And what are you going to do now, Harry? You must realize that the story of your real whereabouts will spread over the wizarding world like fire, and you're unlikely to enjoy a peaceful stay in the Manor with- Malfoy." Harry wondered what uncomplimentary words she'd bitten back. "And there are several cases that could indeed use your help. Wormwood's been struggling with the Moly case."

Harry was grateful that Draco had agreed, after a small sulking fit, to wait in the antechamber to the Head's office. He glanced down at his hands, clasped in his lap, and said nothing.

"Harry?" Amelia prodded gently.

He swallowed, and met her gaze. "How badly is Wormwood handling the Moly case?" he asked.

The light twinkled off her glasses as she sat back. "Badly," she said. "He simply doesn't have enough experience for this. But if we pull him off it and assign him elsewhere..."

She let it trail away, but Harry knew what came next. Assigning Wormwood elsewhere would make the Department look incompetent to have put him on the investigation in the first place, and that was the kind of thing the Minister remembered when it came time to allocate funding to the Departments.

Besides, if Harry had been where he was supposed to be, then the situation would never have arisen. He could have worked with Wormwood, borne the brunt, and compensated for any mistakes his partner made. And that way, when the inevitable split between Harry and Wormwood came, he could move on with his career covered in reflected glory, and some other, less experienced Auror would be assigned to Harry in turn.

Harry could see, now, why Draco thought the Ministry was just using him and his utter unwillingness to trade on his name or demand special treatment because of what he'd accomplished in the past.

But Draco didn't understand something fundamental: Harry didn't _care_ about that. It had never been about rank for him, or money, or how many times his name appeared in the paper. He cared about doing good, and he could do that whether he was partnered with someone who genuinely cared about him or someone who wanted him to do the best he could so that they would get the credit. At the very least, someone who wanted the glory wouldn't get in his way.

And that was all Harry had ever wanted.

He closed his eyes. He had to face the choice, the temptation, that Draco had probably dreaded.

But he knew about his problems now. So in a few weeks, when the pressure of the Moly case ended and he'd covered up any mistakes Wormwood made, he could ease off for a time, make sure he got some more sleep and food, a weekend of flying, and perhaps even a meal or two with Draco.

There were people suffering he could _help._ How could he say no to that?

"I'm coming back now," he said firmly.

Amelia's face relaxed. "Thank you, Harry," she said, and leaned across the desk to clasp his hand. "I'm not flattering you when I tell you that you're the best Auror we have."

Harry felt a warm glow. No, Amelia wasn't really a friend, and neither were any of the other Aurors he worked with, but did that matter? They appreciated him for something he could do.

And if Draco had a problem with that-

Well, he would just have to live with it, that was all. Harry had his own life.

* * *

Draco knew what had gone wrong the moment Harry swept out of Bones's office and past him. He surged up and snatched his elbow, spinning Harry against the wall outside the door. A few people passing gave them curious glances, but Draco didn't give a fuck. He leaned forward, boxing Harry in on either side with his arms, and sneered, "You told her you'd come back, didn't you?"

Harry glared at him. "Yes. And there's absolutely nothing that you can do about it, Malfoy."

"You made a promise," Draco whispered.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Fine. _Draco._"

"That's not what I meant, you utter pillock!" Draco felt something ugly rear up in his chest. It would have been so very easy to hate Harry in that moment. "You promised to stay in the Manor for a month, to work on getting your life back. And now you're burying yourself in paperwork again. And help on just one case, I'm sure. Then you'll promise yourself to relax, won't you? You think you can stop working for a while as soon as you help your incompetent partner just this once."

The startled look on Harry's face was almost comical. Draco shook his head. "You're an addict, Harry. And that's how addiction works. You'll think it's just one case, and that one becomes two, and the two become four. I thought this would happen the moment you came back to the Ministry." He snatched Harry's arm again. "We are going home, _now._"

"I made a promise- "

"Your promise to me comes first," said Draco harshly. "We're at least friends, Harry, we said that. And how would you have responded if Ron or Hermione asked you to keep a promise you made to them instead of working? You would have done it, wouldn't you?"

Harry's eyes sparked, and he shoved Draco hard, pushing him several steps backward. Draco thought wandless magic might have had something to do with that, from the way Harry's hair danced in a stray current of wind.

"They weren't my friends in the same way," Harry hissed. "Don't you _dare_ compare yourself to them, Malfoy. They would never have asked me what you did. They wouldn't have taken advantage of me the way you did. They- "

"I'm not _taking advantage_, I'm _saving your goddamn life, _Harry," Draco said. He had never been so angry. He wanted to draw his wand and Stun Harry, but he suspected that using any unauthorized magic in the Ministry was the way to bring down a dozen Aurors on him, so he refrained. "I care about you, I think I may be _falling in love_ with you, and you accuse _me_ of being the selfish one?"

The silence that followed was filled with the sound of heartbeats and nothing else. Harry's face was the color of raw lettuce.

Draco calmed his breathing. Well, he hadn't meant to say that, but it was out now, and he had always believed in living with what had happened instead of making useless efforts to repair it. Sometimes a quick _Obliviate_ could fix things, and sometimes it couldn't. He watched Harry.

"You- " Harry brought his hand up to shield his face, a defensive maneuver that made Draco's chest ache even he wanted to shake the shit out of Harry. "I- just- no," Harry whispered. "This can't be happening."

"Oh, but it is, Potter." Draco stalked a step closer. "Obligations to other people scare you, don't they?"

"_No_." Harry snapped his head up, and now his face had some color again, if only in the form of a very deep flush. "I face them all the time, Malfoy. I take on cases that give other Aurors nightmares. I put people in Azkaban. I listen to stories that- "

"_Personal_ obligations," Draco pointed out. "Roles that don't end when you close a file or go home for the night. Relationships that endure. You're scared of your feelings like some timid crying _girl_, Potter. And my emotions, too," he added more quietly. "You finally have a life again, and that frightens you more than facing down half a dozen Dark wizards."

"_Shut up._"

Harry's face had twisted, and he made a gesture with one palm held away from his body. Draco found himself unable to move or speak, and, for one terrifying moment, unable to breathe, as though invisible hands had pinched him over every square inch of skin. Then the pressure on his windpipe eased, and he gasped in and out, his eyes on Harry.

"This ends now," Harry said flatly. "I should have known it wouldn't work. I don't _care_ what the fuck you feel for me." His eyes flickered, and Draco knew that was a lie, but Harry was desperately trying to believe it. "What I choose to do with my life is _my_ decision. You were the one who kidnapped me and made me believe that- " He shook his head. "I don't know what I believed. I must have been mad these last few days. But the fact remains that I'm an Auror. That's what defines me, Draco. Saving people is what I _do._ And I made a promise. I'm coming back to my job."

He fixed his gaze steadily on Draco's face. "I wish you well in whatever you do. I won't be pressing charges of abduction. But I'm not coming back to the Manor."

Draco imagined all the work he'd gone through undone, and Harry tumbling back into the trap he'd just barely escaped. Inside a week, he'd be the gray man he had been, ignoring all his own emotions, responding at best with a vague smile to anything anyone said, and with no friends, no lovers, no one who cared for him just for _him_.

Except that that wasn't true, any more. It hadn't been true for the past few years, but Draco was the only one who'd known that, then. Now Harry should bloody well know that someone else cared about him, and he wasn't allowed to forget that, and Draco wasn't going to give up what he wanted just because Harry threw a few poisoned words at him.

He could feel a feral smile lifting the corners of his mouth, and Harry actually took a step back from him, even though Draco was the one bound and helpless, unable to draw his wand. Really, given that he was selfish and stubborn and had kidnapped Harry in the first place, as Harry so eloquently pointed out, it would be strange for him to back off now and respect Harry's supposed claims to his own supposed life.

"You think you're allowed to walk away without any consequences?" he asked, arching an eyebrow. "Hardly, _Harry._ You've seen how possessive I can be. And what do you think I'll do when my lover's trying to kill himself?"

"We're not lovers, and I'll attend to the concerns that you raised," said Harry. "Getting more rest and sleep, talking to someone, trying to have friends. You just can't be a part of that. And if you really cared about me, you would respect my wishes and walk away."

"You can manipulate like a Slytherin when you want to, Harry," Draco murmured, reluctantly impressed. "But you've never been friends with one before this. I know all the tricks. I know all the ways you'll try to make me back off. They're not going to work."

Harry shut his eyes and turned his head away. "I don't want this," he whispered. "I don't want you."

"Liar." Draco flexed his hand, and found he could move it, a little. The grip of Harry's wandless magic was easing as his emotions changed from anger to desperation. In a moment, Draco thought he could put his hand in his robe pocket, and draw out the bottle cap that waited there for emergencies like this one. "Things have changed, Harry, and they're never going to be the way they were."

"I _want_ them to be." Harry snarled at him like a cat with its ears lying flat. "I might have saved you from Wormwood's curse, but that doesn't mean I actually prefer you to him."

Draco laughed then. "You can't even lie well to _yourself_, Harry," he said. "I know what it means that you saved me. I know what it means that you let me suck you off, when just a few days before you wouldn't let me touch you without protesting. And I know that you're not done healing." His hand suddenly slipped into his pocket, and he drew out the bottle cap. "And Harry?"

Harry snarled at him again.

"Catch."

Draco tossed the bottle cap. Harry had never overcome his Seeker instincts, that much was certain- or perhaps the last week in the Manor had lessened whatever Auror training told him not to grab flying objects. He snatched the Portkey from the air, and it sparkled and made him vanish.

Draco laughed quietly. That Portkey would take Harry to a heavily warded room in the Manor that was meant to be one of the last refuges of the Malfoy family in times of danger. Harry couldn't Apparate out, and his wandless magic might manage to take down the wards, but probably wouldn't before Draco could arrive.

He touched the second Portkey, the top button of his robes, and vanished, too. He had no illusions about Harry's feelings after this. Harry would be furious, raging, and probably give Draco quite the fight.

Draco was looking forward to it.

_If the time ever comes that he's fully healed and wants to walk away from me, I'll allow that. Then. But he's acting like a child. And it's about time we had a proper duel._


	30. The Duel

Thanks for all the reviews on the last chapter!

_Chapter 30—The Duel_

Harry landed in dimness, and half-stumbled to one knee. His free hand, the one not clutching the Portkey, shot out to brace him, even as his brain went to work and he realized what had happened.

_Malfoy tricked me. The goddamn bastard!_

The walls around him trembled, and Harry became aware that he could break out whenever he liked, despite being surrounded with strong wards. He bared his teeth in a fierce snarl, and set to work dashing his wandless magic against the wards, even as he drew his wand and shot a _Finite Incantatem_ at the door.

The spells held up better than he expected for a long while. Harry supposed the room was meant to be a refuge for the Malfoys in a time of danger. There was no other reason to have one room in the whole Manor so heavily protected.

He didn't care, though. He had broken into Dark wizards' strongholds that were just as fortified. He would win free, and then go back to the Ministry. If he absolutely had to, he could ask Madam Bones to provide him with protective custody from Malfoy, or file those abduction charges he'd been wanting to hold off on. For God's sake, Malfoy just didn't know when to stop—

And then the door opened. Harry surged backward, his wand pointing directly at it, all his senses singing. He thought a house-elf might have stood there, but instead if was Draco—Malfoy—staring at him with an expression somewhere between bemusement and anticipation.

"You don't give up easily, do you, Harry?" he asked.

"Just let me the fuck out of here," Harry said, as evenly as he could while adrenaline was running through his veins and his magic snapped around him like banners in a high wind. "I've caused you more trouble than I can possibly have been worth. You can still save yourself legal action—"

Malfoy's answer was to lift his wand and fire a Body-Bind at him.

_Bastard!_ Harry snarled and rolled out of the way, nearly colliding with the bed that stood in one corner of the room. His Auror instincts warned him in time, though, and he drew his legs up close to his chest and focused on throwing Malfoy out the door with wandless magic.

Draco turned his helpless slide into a roll, so that he bounced off the edge of the doorway and came back in. His eyes shone, and his hair flapped, and altogether he was enjoying himself too much for Harry's taste, which just inspired the rage in Harry's chest to new heights of frenzy.

"You don't have a clue what it's like, to watch the man you almost love trying to commit suicide," Draco whispered. "You've frozen yourself since the Weasleys died. But you know what, Harry? I'm going to make sure you know _every single one_ of those emotions. You're so afraid of feeling them, the best test is to make you face them. I'll—"

With an inarticulate cry, Harry swept his hand away from his body and moved it in front of him. Draco fell, hard, gasping as the tumble smacked the air out of his lungs. Harry moved in a leap, like a leopard, and then he sat on Draco's chest, trying to wrest his wand away from him and pin his arms behind his back at the same time.

Draco locked his legs around Harry's waist and threw him up and forward. Harry's head collided with the wooden floor, and his muscles went limp for an instant. Then Draco's wand dug into his throat.

"If you'd just listen, Harry," Draco said evenly, "the way that you were before we went to the Ministry, and you decided it was easier to break your promises and back away from your decisions—"

"Shut the fuck up," Harry said, and glared at him. Draco might have him in what was essentially a helpless position, but he didn't have the advantage of Harry's wandless magic. And Harry was more than angry enough right now to use it.

He concentrated, and Draco went flying away from him as if blasted. He staggered to a stop near the bed, his hand ripping furrows in the blankets. Harry flipped to his feet and aimed his own wand again.

"_Caeco_," he snapped.

"_Protego_," Draco said at the same time, and Harry's Blinding Curse bounced off the shimmer of the Shield Charm and back at him, which made Harry duck and roll beneath it. His mind was working cleanly and clearly now, though, through the repertoire of spells that he always used when he wanted to bring a suspect in alive.

"_Incarcerous_," he intoned, but Draco had already moved, scrambling across the bed and plunging down on the far side, so the ropes shot around and coiled uselessly on nothing. Harry snarled.

The bed rose, whirled into the air by his magic, and shattered against the far wall. Harry ducked flying splinters and chunks of wood and cloth, his eyes on Draco, who appeared to be chanting an incantation much too long for battle under his breath.

"_Stupefy_," Harry said, but Draco threw himself completely flat to avoid the red beam of the Stunner, and in a second was on his feet, his wand flicking at Harry. Either the incantation was nonverbal, or the spell he'd been preparing before was this one, and all that remained was the wand movement.

Harry felt an odd shifting sensation in his head, and then a barrier of some sort came down. He stiffened, wondering if Draco knew Legilimency, or a spell that could mimic it, and had just delved into his mind.

Draco breathed a quick word, touching his wand to his own chest, and then Harry was flooded with emotions that weren't his. He knew they were probably Draco's, but they were all focused on _him_, and that made it quite different from just feeling Draco's irritation at a stain on his robes.

Exasperation. Fondness. Determination. A wavering combination of lust and infatuation that might tip over the edge into love any moment now. A fascination that wasn't anything like the momentary attractions that he'd had to other lovers. Pity—

That emotion was the one that made Harry shake his head furiously, trying to break the connection, and toss his arm out, palm flat towards Draco. Another enormous force seized him and slammed him backwards, this time into the wall. Harry definitely heard a dull _crack._

And then Draco moaned, and slid limply down the wall to the floor.

Harry shook. He stood still, with eyes fixed on Draco and a sick feeling growing in his chest, especially when Draco didn't stand, but just lay where he was, head occasionally moving sideways an inch or two.

Three moments later, Harry cursed helplessly and sped across the room to him. He dropped to one knee beside him, supporting Draco's shoulders gently with one hand and using the fingers of the other to feel the back of his head. No lump that he could find, luckily, and no blood that he could see, which probably meant that he'd snapped something else. A limb? A rib?

The sickness grew, and he clenched his teeth against vomiting. _God_, this was just the kind of thing Theresa had warned him against, when she'd said that he might turn into a Dark Lord. Did he _want_ to hurt innocent people? Did he enjoy it?

And no, he didn't, but he thought that anyone standing in the room for the last few minutes would have good reason to believe otherwise.

"Draco, I'm sorry," he said frantically, easing Draco down so that he rested in his lap and feeling his left arm with careful fingers. Draco arched his neck and moaned when Harry reached the elbow, and Harry winced. He'd had a broken elbow himself, and they hurt like mad. "I'm so sorry," he whispered, and stroked Draco's hair. Then he raised his voice. "Trippy!"

The house-elf appeared with a pop, and gave him a stern look. Harry ignored it. All he really wanted was a potion to help Draco; she could give him a lecture later. "Bring a potion to heal a broken arm," he said tightly. "An elbow, specifically." He let his fingers hover over the wound, not sure he should touch it again. Even the slightest jolt on his own had sent arrows of pain arcing through him.

Trippy said in a stiff voice, "Trippy is helping Master Draco," and vanished. Harry put his head back until he leaned against the wall, and murmured an immobilizing spell on Draco's arm, so that he couldn't move it accidentally in his half-daze and do himself an injury.

And over and over, the thought repeated in his head. _God, what am I doing? What am I becoming? And for what? For the sake of winning an argument?_

He wondered if Draco would hate him after this. Not that Harry would blame him if he did, but then he would have to know it had come about through his own stupidity, rather than just through his determined attempts to drive Draco away from him and make up him take up some other hobby than Harry-baiting.

And then Draco tried to move.

"Draco?" Harry bent over him at once. "Don't do that. You've broken your elbow. Trippy's coming back with a potion. Just hold still now." He heard his voice descend into the soft croon that he used with victims injured by Dark wizards but still alive when the Aurors got there. "I promise, it'll be all right. And God, I'm sorry. I don't know what got into me." He ran his fingers over Draco's forehead.

_You know exactly what got into you, _his conscience retorted. _The desire to have your own life instead of sharing it._

Harry swallowed. The best he could hope for from this, he realized, was that Draco would know how fundamentally unstable he was and give up trying to help him. It was better for Draco's health that Harry went back to the Ministry. Not all the apologies in the world could make up for this.

* * *

Draco hadn't broken his elbow.

He knew that if he had, he would be in a world of pain by now. He _had_ banged it rather badly, enough that little frissons ran down his arm when he tried to move it, but there was no fracture there.

He would pretend there was, though, because it was the best tactic—if one he hadn't anticipated using—to get Harry to do what he wanted him to. Oh, yes.

Draco admitted now that the idea of simply testing his magical strength against Harry and doing his best to confine him was stupid. Harry was always going to win in a one-on-one battle, unless he was drunk or had one hand tied behind his back, because he was simply stronger. So Draco would have to do something else if he wanted Harry to stay in the Manor and take up his promises again.

Guilt was an excellent motivator. Draco hadn't wanted to use it, but, on the other hand, Harry was being irrational right now. So Draco groaned pitifully, waited until he heard the pop that meant Trippy was back in the room, and then whispered, "Did she come back with the potion yet?"

"Trippy is here!"

The house-elf bustled up and tried to remove him from Harry's arms as she fed him the potion, though Harry clung to him and seemed reluctant to let him actually go. Draco sighed as he felt the pain in his elbow fade entirely. The potion would normally take some hours to work with a broken bone, which was only more proof that he wasn't as badly hurt as Harry thought he was.

Not that he was about to let on, of course. He let his right hand clasp his elbow, and winced. Harry flinched in sympathy, and then murmured, "Do you want me to take you to your room, Draco?"

"Yes, please," Draco whispered, striving for the tone he'd used when he was doing his best to convince his mother he was sick as a child.

Luckily, Harry had never known Draco then, and didn't have Narcissa's finely-tuned ears for a lie. He nodded fervently and levitated Draco with _Mobilicorpus_, steering him tenderly around the edge of the door and out into the hallway. He paused then, not having a clue where to go, but Draco directed him in a small voice, now and then breaking off to utter pained whimpers. By the time they did reach his bedroom, Harry was practically sweating with anxiety. He lowered Draco to rest against his pillows as if he were a kitten with a broken leg, and then arranged the blankets around him slowly, gently.

"I'm so sorry," he said, when that was done, and he stood by the bed twisting his hands. "You must hate me now."

Draco bravely lifted his head and met Harry eye-to-eye. "I don't hate you," he said. "But—I don't know if I can trust you, Harry." He sighed as he spoke.

Harry glanced miserably away from him. "I know," he said. "I haven't ever injured someone like that in all the time I've been an Auror, Draco. That just shows that I shouldn't be here. I'll hurt you again. I appreciate all you tried to do for me. When I go back to the Ministry, I—"

"Harry," Draco said quietly.

The tone of his voice made Harry stop babbling, though he was still staring at the door of the room instead of Draco.

"Look at me."

Reluctantly, Harry turned his head back. Draco remembered just in time to use his right arm instead of the "broken" left one, and tenderly cupped Harry's cheek with his hand.

"I want you to start living up to your promises," he said. "That will help me, and you, more than any futile protests about not using your wandless magic again. If Theresa's right, this is just the first of many outbursts that will get steadily worse. You _need_ to heal, to make sure that this doesn't happen again, either to me or to someone you could wind up killing."

Harry sat down on the edge of the bed as if all the strength had left his legs. "I don't see how I can," he whispered.

"You were making progress before we went to the Ministry," Draco reminded him, running one finger along the edge of Harry's lower lip. "You were listening to me, and Theresa. What changed, Harry?"

Harry closed his eyes. "The Ministry," he said. "I just—I _have_ to work, Draco. I have to save other people. How can I just relax when I know that there are people out there I can help?"

Draco followed his hand with his mouth, despite Harry's anxious murmurs about his left elbow, kissing the side of Harry's face, and then pulling him around for a deeper kiss on the lips. Harry succumbed without protest, and Draco made it gentle, pulling back after a few moments.

"Other Aurors can help them, Harry," he whispered. "You're not the only one in the Ministry."

"Madam Bones said I'm the best one."

Draco suffered a surge of rage, but he did his best to keep his voice level. "Even if you are, that shouldn't mean they want you worked to death and so exhausted that your magic lashes out at all and sundry. They're _using_ you, Harry, can't you see that? Playing on your guilt complex to make you do what they want."

_So are you_, his mind told him.

_Yes, but I'm doing it to better Harry's life, _Draco pointed out. _They're just doing it for their own glory._

The little voice fell silent. It didn't take that much to salve Draco's conscience, really.

"They don't think of it like that," Harry whispered.

Draco paused. At least Harry was thinking about the way the Ministry used him, then, which was a mark of progress he hadn't expected. "How do they think of it, then, Harry? Or how do you think they think of it?"

Harry's eyes opened, staring earnestly into his. "Someone has to get the work done," he said. "I'm the one who can. I'm _good_ at that, Draco, and I don't mind sacrifices of my time. And, with my name—well, I could be a real liability if I chose to be. I could be one of those spoilt brats who throws a fit every time something in the office isn't exactly to his liking. It pays for me to keep my head down, really. It spares them headaches while they try to decide what to do with me."

He hesitated, one hand playing with the blankets. Draco let go of his face to take the hand and stroke it. "And?"

Harry met his gaze again. "And everyone else has a family, or close friends," he said. "Well. Nearly everyone. They just—they _need_ to go home, Draco, and spend time with them." He tried a smile, which collapsed and died in the face of Draco's unrelenting stare. "And I don't," he finished, more quietly. "So I can work more, because there's no one to mourn if something happens to me."

Draco had to work hard to draw a breath through his fury. "You're making it sound as if your life is less important than theirs, Harry," he pointed out.

"It is," Harry said, with a blink. "Surely you can see that?"

"No, I _can't_ fucking see that," Draco bit out, deciding some anger was safe. Harry would probably attribute part of it to his "injury."

"It _is_," Harry said, face turning adamant. "I told you, Draco. No one to mourn. A name that's an inconvenience as much as it's a convenience. A life that hasn't been spent doing anything noteworthy or useful but catching Dark wizards. I can only do what I'm good at. Without that, why am I alive?"

God, Draco wanted to kill them, though who the "them" were—the Dursleys, who were probably responsible for making Harry feel like this in the first place, or the Ministry—he didn't know.

But that wasn't productive right now. Instead, he smothered the need for vengeance and leaned forward until his face rested against Harry's. Harry accepted the gesture, though he looked confused.

"Harry," Draco whispered. "You do have someone who cares about you now. You matter to me—I can't even say how much, but that spell let you feel it." He could swear he actually felt Harry's cheek become cooler beneath his own, as he turned pale. "If you treat your life like it's a piece of shit, you affect not only yourself, but also me. That's why I want you to stay here, and try to recover. Of _course_ your life matters even if you can't catch a Dark wizard. Can you see yourself as the victim you have to save this time? Or me?"

Harry closed his eyes and shivered. When Draco pulled back, he could see Harry swallowing rapidly, again and again.

"It's just—" Harry murmured.

"Yes?" Draco encouraged, never taking his right hand from Harry's hair, where it had migrated to stroke and soothe.

"I'm not _good_ at anything else."

"You don't need to be," Draco said. "I promise. Stay here, Harry, and we'll try to unlearn whatever it was you learned that convinced you of that horrid idea."

"The Ministry won't like it."

"The Ministry can suck my cock."

Harry gave a watery laugh, and glanced again at Draco's left elbow. "I should go," he said. "Let you rest."

Draco kept his hand in place. "Will you promise me to stay?"

He could practically feel the battle raging in Harry, as all the old ideas and instincts clashed with the new one that said his life actually mattered to someone beyond himself, Auror or not. And then Harry licked his lips, and nodded.

Draco closed his eyes in relief, and tried to hide it with a yawn. "Good," he said, and slid down against the pillows as Harry quietly departed the room.

He knew they still had a distance to walk. He truly believed, now, that Harry would have killed himself if some accident had happened that rendered him useless to the Ministry. He had been completely and profoundly alone.

But every small victory they could achieve made it likelier they would achieve another one. And Draco counted getting Harry to rebel against his ingrained instincts as a major victory, not a small one.

_Even if I did have to use guilt._


	31. A Dark Night of the Soul, Interrupted

_Chapter 31—A Dark Night of the Soul, Interrupted_

Harry paced wildly back and forth across his room. Every time he thought he could calm down, slow down, his mind would hold up in front of his eyes, solemn as an old portrait, the image of Draco lying with his left arm curled at an unnatural angle.

_I did that. How could I do that? It was rough, violent, inhumane. That came from my not controlling myself._

And if Draco and Theresa could be believed, ultimately even _that_ was rooted in his need to serve the Ministry, his self-corruption, his self-neglect.

Harry halted and ran a hand through his hair. He panted as if he'd been running five miles. His throat stung as if he'd run those miles in winter air.

_I'm the one who did cause all the trouble. And the very things that I thought would keep me in check are the things driving me towards violence now. Can't I do anything right but catch Dark wizards?_

The half-hysteria he felt now was familiar, whenever something—obstructions in the Ministry, someone else's personal ambition, complaints from his partners—prevented him from working a case as he'd wanted. His breathing sped up until he was nearly hyperventilating, and his hands opened and closed and opened again as if he were tossing up and then catching his wand.

But usually, he worked himself into a frenzy and then flung himself into the next case they _had_ given him, so that he could at least make productive use of the excess energy. That wasn't going to happen here, not when Draco would keep him from working even if Harry broke his other arm, and not when Harry had acknowledged that his work addiction was the source of the problem.

_So what can I do?_

_Stop panicking, _his conscience promptly snapped back. _Think. Instead of falling into fear and deciding that you can't do anything right, decide what is the best thing to do. You have to pursue one path. Which will it be?_

Harry caught his breath and held it, then slowly let it out, second by second, even though his heart fluttered again and again in his chest and his blood pounded through his temples with the same frenetic pace. He forced himself to think, and discard options that wouldn't work: sneaking away from the Manor to go back to the Ministry, ignoring Draco, finding a case and working on it on the sly.

Finally, when he'd pared down his other options, he was left with only one, one that made him quiver and sigh and decide.

_To do what Draco and Theresa want me to do. To remain here, to try to shed the traces of my addiction, and to do my best to think of myself as worth something outside my work._

The more he thought about it, the more Harry could appreciate the finer points of that strategy. For one thing, what _would_ have happened if the strain on his emotions had increased, and then he'd met a situation where he couldn't work at all due to an injury or due to the Ministry assigning a spate of cases to other people? He could have lost his temper and his control of his magic, and he wouldn't have been able to stop after breaking just one person's arm.

_Draco is right._

The thought came creeping into his head with reluctance, because Draco Malfoy was not, as Harry usually understood the term, a good person. He cared about Harry, but that seemed personal and idiosyncratic. He wouldn't save another person because that person needed saving; he would only do it if he cared. And though he might love his mother, too, he'd showed precious little sign of caring about anyone _other_ than Harry.

_He asked me if I could think of myself as the person to be rescued. And him, too?_

Harry blinked, and lifted his head. Well, why not? He _did_ know that he couldn't fall in love with the kind of person he had once believed Draco Malfoy to be, no matter how healed he became. And if—compassion—changed him, mightn't it change Draco? When Harry was recovered and ready to go back to the Ministry, perhaps Draco would agree to it, because Harry could soften his attitude in the meantime, and show him how much he'd truly recovered.

_If this is going to change me, it'll change him at the same time. Narcissa said he hasn't done anything like this for any of his other lovers. He's already different as he relates to me. That will make it less terrible for me to be different as I relate to him._

For the first time since Draco had abducted him, Harry began to consider that his imprisonment here was not so terrible a thing. Perhaps he could even look forward to what lay at the end of it, rather than seeing it as something to get through.

_And love?_

Harry shook his head impatiently. It was Draco who felt love, or claimed he did; Harry didn't know if that had been true or a lie Draco invented on the spur of the moment in order to steer Harry back into his clutches. He would focus on getting better first and falling in love later, if it happened at all.

Trippy abruptly appeared in front of him, wringing her hands. Harry leaned forward. "Has something happened to Draco, Trippy?"

"No, Master Draco is resting fine," the house-elf squeaked, while her eyes filled with tears. "But there is a visitor at the wards to see M-Master Harry. And Master Draco said Trippy is to be obeying Master Harry, too, and the visitor y-yelled at Trippy, and—" She ducked her head, tugging at her ears.

Harry sighed. _Well. I hardly expected the Ministry to ignore me forever when I vanished right after agreeing that I'd return to work. _"Take me to the visitor, Trippy, "he said, doing his best to make his voice both powerful and soothing. "I'll talk with him."

The visitor turned out not to be a "him" at all, but Amelia Bones, who was cleaning her glasses as she waited for him. Harry knew she did that when she wanted to look intimidating. He paused at the door that opened onto the strip of grass where she stood, unsure if he should approach until she was done.

Amelia glanced up, saw him, and stiffened her spine briefly before she cleared her throat and put her glasses back on her nose. "Mr. Potter," she said evenly.

Harry waited, but she said nothing more than that. Harry wondered what she wanted. An apology? An explanation? He'd expected an interrogation, and not receiving that unnerved him.

At last, Amelia sighed and folded her arms. "Mr. Potter," she said, as if talking to a child, "you know that you are the best Auror we have. The Department cannot spare you for a long period of time. And now I hear confused stories from those who saw you bring in the criminal: that you are Malfoy's—lover, that you aren't, that you have been in a coma all this time and this is someone currently Polyjuiced as you. I would like an explanation, Mr. Potter, and then I would like you to return to work."

Harry wished briefly that Draco was there. It would have been easier to resist the temptation if he were.

And then Harry remembered the _reason_ that Draco wasn't there, which he was responsible for, and told himself he ought to be able to stand up to temptation now. What did any vows or promises matter, if he shattered the first time someone tested him? That was what had happened so far when he ran away from Theresa and when he went back to the Ministry. He deserved a period of time alone, a true risk, to find out if he really had the mettle to keep pursuing this course, or had to borrow it from other people.

"Sorry, Madam Bones," he said, as evenly as he could. "But I'm taking a—holiday from my Auror duties for the moment."

Amelia's eyes narrowed, but then she tipped her head so that the light glinting off her lenses made it impossible to see her expression at all. "Define the reasons why, Mr. Potter."

Harry winced and took a deep breath. He hated the half-scolding tone she used. It had always been the one that made him comply most readily. If he believed he'd done something wrong, why wouldn't he attempt to make up for it? And the atonement would include coming in and working hard at the Ministry, right now.

_You can get through this._

"Malfoy believes that I've worked myself nearly to death," he said. If he could use plain facts, he would find it easier than if he had to delve into the complicated emotional tangle he and Draco had set up. "He wants me to have some time to myself. He showed me records that made me agree with him. I'm taking longer and longer to catch criminals, getting less and less sleep, and slipping when it comes to discovering secrets and solving cases. I do plan to return to the Ministry when I'm sure that I've recovered from this—this collapse, Madam Bones. But Malfoy is attempting to keep me from all contact with my job until I've healed completely. Coming back today was a mistake."

Amelia just stared at him throughout his recitation, which made Harry feel all the stranger and more wrong for making it. By the end, his face was thoroughly flushed. He bowed his head and kept his eyes on the ground.

"You can't leave just like that, Harry," Amelia said at last. "We needed notice. And—well, we haven't seen a difference in your performances, to be honest. You're still faster and more suited to the investigations we send you on than most Aurors we have. You seem to have had a change of heart, and I don't know why. You are our most dedicated field worker."

Harry winced. God, everything seemed to be pulling him backwards, towards his job. How could he let people go unhelped whom he could help? He had a set of unique skills that no one else did. It was less about people valuing him for what he could do, though that was the reason he'd given Draco, and more about the fact that having the power to aid others and not using it was one of the truest definitions of evil Harry knew.

But, on the other hand, if he had let the matter go, and then injured other people later because he refused to do the sensible thing—

Wasn't that evil, too?

"According to Malfoy, my decline has been gradual," said Harry, meeting his superior's gaze as steadily as he could. "He kept records, but it's hard to see without them. And I _do_ care about the job and the people involved, I promise. I fully intend to return. Yet if my hold on my emotions continues to decline, and one day my wandless magic escapes my control and injures others, isn't that a bad thing?"

Amelia's eyebrows rose. "And Malfoy has uncovered evidence that such a thing might happen?"

"It's happened again and again since I've been here," Harry confirmed. "Since the—the Weasley Massacre, I've buried my grief, but it doesn't take much to stir it up, I've found. I've probably been lucky to encounter no case so far that reminds me of the Massacre too strongly. But it could happen, and then my magic will escape my control, and I could easily be guilty of murder."

Amelia stood there, considering, for some time. When she spoke again, her tone was reluctant. "You certainly deserve some holidays, Potter. You've never taken any of the ones you could have. But—well, to be frank," and she leaned nearer and lowered her voice, "the Moly case isn't the only one we could use your help on, right now. There's a barrage of them hitting the Ministry all at once, and Skeeter's got her eye on us, just _watching_ for a slip. She's already written a few articles berating poor Wormwood for taking too long and being incompetent. We could work out a compromise. Spend part of your days at Malfoy Manor and part of your days in the office. Just for the next few weeks, until this latest load of cases is off our backs."

Harry closed his eyes. Well, now, that was an even worse temptation than the rest.

And he might have accepted it, if he could have trusted himself to hold back and only spend part of the day working. But he knew he'd be thinking about the details of the cases even when he was at the Manor, even when he tried to sleep or relax or enjoy himself. It was impossible for him to escape from work if he went back now.

He might not _like_ what Draco'd had to say about his addiction to work, but it made good sense.

"Madam," he sad at last, looking at her, "I'm sure that my co-workers are competent, too."

"Of course they are," said Amelia stiffly, as if he'd offended her.

"Competent enough to do without me for a few weeks," said Harry firmly. "They _can_ solve cases. They don't _have_ to depend on me. Perhaps this will be good for them, even." He gave her a smile that he didn't really feel; instead, his stomach was churning sickly as he thought of what might happen to the victims involved if he refused to help. "They'll get a chance to exercise capabilities that might have atrophied."

"You're _refusing_?" Amelia looked astonished now, as if she had never considered that he might do this.

Harry nodded. "You don't need me that much," he said, with more confidence than he possessed. "You only think you do. And I suppose my name is helpful in keeping Skeeter's attention distracted and the Ministry from noticing any shortage of _work_ being done. But—every case we receive is important. Every day, we're under public scrutiny. Every few weeks, we have a barrage of cases like this. If I go back, then even more politically important cases could show up in a few days' time."

"You should know that persistent refusal to help could get you sacked, Potter," Amelia said.

Harry's heart galloped with panic, the way it did when he contemplated being injured in a raid and having to live the rest of his life behind a desk, if he stayed in the Ministry at all. He was nothing without his job, without being able to help—

And then he reined himself in, and reminded himself that wasn't true. He did have one person who valued him outside the job. And he truly didn't believe that everyone else in the Ministry was as incompetent as Amelia was portraying them. What had happened was that they'd become too used to depending on him, just as he'd become too used to depending on his job.

"Then I suppose I'll be sacked," he said, and turned, and walked back into the Manor. He knew he couldn't continue the confrontation without cracking.

Trippy shut the door behind him with a triumphant bang. Harry held up his hand in front of him and watched it shake with an almost academic interest.

_It worked. It worked. I can do this. I've started._

* * *

Draco slowly lowered his wand. The wards had let him know an intruder was there, of course, and he'd immediately enchanted one of the windows that usually showed an imaginary vision of a perfect summer's day to show him the wards instead. He'd been expecting a visitor from the Ministry, and would interfere if he had to. 

Instead, he'd watched Harry handle Madam Bones with more grace than Draco had thought he possessed, and courage he never knew was in him.

Draco leaned back against his pillows, and feigned sleep, in case Harry checked on him. His heart was beating fast, though, with a peculiar mixture of pleasure and hope.

_He can do this. I wasn't wrong to start this after all, not when it's turning out so well._


	32. Harry Tells Theresa What For

_Chapter 32—Harry Tells Theresa What For_

Harry was aware of a certain caution in Theresa's eyes when he entered the room for their next meeting. He wondered if it came just from her memories of their last session, or from something as elemental as the way he walked, the tilt of his head, the light in his eyes.

This time, Harry had not needed to go in pasting a mask of confidence over a crumbling interior world. He _did_ feel confident, and the way he moved and held himself would reflect that.

"Harry." Theresa's voice was subdued. She gestured for him to take a seat in the chair across from her, and only looked more worried when he complied. Harry might have missed the quick flutter of her lips as she breathed out a small sigh, but he was a trained Auror; they noticed things other people wouldn't. "What has changed since the last time we met?"

"For one thing," said Harry, clasping his hands in his lap and learning forward, "I have learned the lesson that I was too stubborn to learn from you."

Theresa was apparently still enough a Healer to be intrigued by the notion of her patient healing himself. She leaned forward in turn. "What do you mean?"

"I faced the Ministry again," said Harry blandly. "You've probably read the articles in the papers about how Harry Potter reappeared briefly from a mysterious confinement and then disappeared again?"

"I may have read—something about that."

"That _was_ me, not someone using my name or my face," Harry confirmed. "And I went to the Ministry for the right reasons, to comfort someone who needed it and make sure a criminal was properly arrested. But I stayed for the wrong ones." He cocked his head. "And then Draco kidnapped me again, and we fought, and I broke his arm, and that was when I felt guilty and talked _myself_ out of going back to the Ministry, even when Madam Bones came here to coax me."

Theresa looked a bit dazed. Harry wondered if it was from the swift way he'd recited things or the speed of events themselves. "And what do you think this means, Harry?" she asked finally, evidently attempting to conceal her own uncertainty by forcing him to answer a question.

"It means that I'm committed to healing now, that I acknowledge I have a problem, and that I faced temptation on my own and didn't let guilt drag me back to the Ministry." Harry sat up. "And it means, I should think, that I don't need your help any more."

Theresa tilted her head to one side. "Really."

"Yes." Harry nodded firmly. He had had an argument with Draco about this. Draco thought they should retain Theresa for at least a few more sessions, until they could make sure that Harry's change was well and truly settled. Harry wanted her to leave now, and considered Draco's stubbornness about keeping her a sign that Draco didn't trust his willpower. Finally they'd settled on the compromise that, if Harry could make Theresa leave on her own, Draco wouldn't pressure her to stay. "I learn best on my own, when I'm faced with the actual challenge. Talking like this makes me feel worse, and doesn't help. Why would you want to waste your time when you could go back to St. Mungo's and help those who actually _need_ you?"

A faint smile curled the corners of Theresa's mouth. "I hate to tell you this, Harry, but though the fundamental lessons probably are the most important, they are not the only ones. You still need help to learn the rest."

Harry snorted. "Such as?"

"The commitment to making and keeping friends after this. I have not heard you name that as something you learned."

Harry shifted. So, all right, he hadn't considered that, but he had expected a bit more applause for having stood up to the Ministry in the form of Madam Bones, and he wondered, now, what it would take to satisfy Theresa. "I might look up a few old school friends," he muttered.

Theresa smiled approval. "Such as?"

_Shit. _Harry scowled at her. Theresa only went on with her gentle beam, as though she were genuinely interested in what he did after this.

"Dean Thomas," Harry said at last, grudgingly. "He was in Gryffindor House and my year. He's an artist now," he added. He'd come across mention of that when Dean was a witness in a big case a few years ago. "And he was always friendly. I thought I'd talk to him, see if we can become friends instead of acquaintances."

"That's a start," Theresa murmured. "Have you thought of other people you might want to share your life with?"

Harry deliberated. And deliberated some more. And then deliberated some more, while Theresa waited with no sign of impatience, no twitching, and a serenity that would have done credit to a trained Auror.

"No," he said, at last.

"Well, that's one thing we can talk about," said Theresa. "A way to make your way back into normal life, and think of friends in ways that extend beyond Hogwarts. They will never replace the ones you lost, of course, but that isn't their purpose."

Harry ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "This damn scar is still a problem," he told her. "Other than people I knew at Hogwarts—and only a few of them, even—I don't know who I can trust to be a friend and who would want to follow me around fawning on me. It will be better than it used to be right after I killed Voldemort, but people still _stared_ at me in the theater Draco and I went to. You'd think they'd be used to the sight of an Auror with glasses and a scar on his head by now, but _no_."

"That makes you upset, doesn't it?" Theresa asked softly. "That you can never be sure which bonds that connect you to others are real, and which were founded solely on your fame?"

Harry gave her a sour look. "What was your first clue?"

Theresa spoke more gently than he'd ever heard her speak. "Have you considered that you do deserve some fame, Harry, and that if you sift through enough people, you'll find those who can offer genuine friendship? You found them once before, at a time when your fame was high compared to what it is now, and that for surviving the Killing Curse. Is your reputation really a barrier in your eyes? Or do you treat it as a barrier because you are used to doing so?"

"That's a stupid question," said Harry. "Of course it's real, and of course it bloody prevents me from doing what I want to do. Why do you _think_ I never made more than a few close friends at Hogwarts? Everything else was hero-worship and suspicion. People were all too willing to turn on me when they thought I was lying about Voldemort's return in my fifth year, or because I speak Parseltongue."

"Well, that's unlikely to happen now, at least." Theresa gave him another smile. Harry wondered if her brains were addled, or if she could be so cheerful just because this wasn't _her_ life. "You probably only have the heroic side of your reputation to contend with. I'd like to talk about that now, Harry, what you feel about it and how it prevents you from having a normal life."

Harry could feel a blush creeping up his cheeks. He hated talking about being the center of attention. It seemed to bring all those stares into the room by proxy.

"You're not leaving, are you?" It was more of an exhalation than anything else.

"When my work here is done," Theresa said calmly.

* * *

Draco smirked and leaned back, stretching his arms over his head. He hadn't thought Harry would manage to convince Theresa to leave. Harry was stubborn, true enough, but he was still out of his league when fighting a purely emotional battle. Physical dueling was more his style.

A pop next to him startled him, but it was only Trippy, bowing and handing over a sheaf of parchment. "Here is the reports from Master Dogfoot, Master Draco, sir," she squeaked.

"Excellent." Draco had hired an ex-Auror—sacked not for incompetence but because he'd angered the Minister—to track down Harry's Muggle relatives and find out essential information about them. From the size of the sheaf Draco held in his hands, Dogfoot had done his job perfectly.

The first page contained an address in Surrey. Draco smirked. _So they haven't left the country, after all. Better and better. I would have been annoyed if I had to use the intercontinental Floo network to reach them._

The next page had photographs. Draco curled his lip and stared in disgust at a man so obscenely fat that he most resembled a walrus dragged out on ice. He puffed and blew in the picture as he put his hands on the shoulders of a woman with a sharp nose, a thick chin, and a long neck that looked as if it would snap under the pressure of the necklace she wore. Then he bent down and kissed her cheek, and she blushed and giggled like a schoolgirl.

_Harry's aunt and uncle, _Draco thought, since the man was far too old for Harry's cousin—bald, except for the enormous moustache that dominated the lower half of his face. _Too bad that I can't count on a heart attack doing the job for me. _

The next picture was of a younger man who must be Dudley Dursley; the family resemblance to Harry's uncle was unmistakable. Draco looked hard at the squashed face, marble-like eyes, butter-yellow hair, and, above all, the rolls of fat that covered him, and yet couldn't see a trace of Harry anywhere; they might as well have been unrelated. He found himself savagely glad of that.

Dudley Dursley was walking across the paved yard of some Muggle building, eating a sandwich. Draco wrinkled his nose as he watched crumbs fly away from the fat man's mouth, and remembered something that Harry had told Theresa during his attempt to make it seem as if his Muggle relatives weren't all bad.

_Sometimes they didn't feed me that well, but I couldn't blame them; my uncle and cousin were so fat they probably didn't notice they hadn't left me any food._

It could explain, at least, why Harry didn't appear to care about the meals he ate when he worked. Long-term exposure to starvation or poor rations would do that, and, even more insidious, could convince Harry that he didn't _deserve_ to eat any better than a house-elf. Draco would in no way want Harry obese, but he made a private note to continue supervising his meals until Harry learned that lesson as well.

The rest of the parchments contained notes on the Dursleys: their daily routines, the interior of their house, their personalities, what they most often did when they took a holiday. Apparently Dudley still lived at home with his parents, and worked for his father's drill company. Petunia, the aunt, spent most of her time spying on and gossiping with her neighbors. Vernon Dursley went to work and ate and slept and watched the Muggle device called a telly, and that appeared to comprise the whole of his miserable existence.

Draco had told Dogfoot to search for traces of magic around the Dursleys' home, or other evidence of a wizard having lived there at one time, without telling him why it was important. Dogfoot had faithfully performed all kinds of spells, including some that were usually known only to Aurors. He hadn't found a trace, not even the lingering psychic impression that would have said simply that a wizard had lived there for more than a decade. In his professional opinion, recorded near the end of the sheaf, the Dursleys were utterly ordinary Muggles with no trace of contact with the magical world.

Draco knew what that meant. Psychic impressions could be scrubbed away from a house, but when a wizard had lived in a place as long as Harry had, it took a two-sided process. The wizard had to refuse to think of the place as home, and the people who lived there had to ignore their memories of him. Apparently, Harry and the Dursleys had been perfectly content to exercise their mutual antipathy. So Number 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, was as far from being Harry's home as the inside of Malfoy Manor was. The Manor was closer, in Draco's opinion, because at least Harry was cared for here.

_And loved?_

Draco considered the difficult question for a few minutes, then carefully set it aside, just as he tucked Dogfoot's notes into a rosewood box waiting for them and charmed it shut so that no one but him could open it. He didn't know the answer yet. He was falling more and more steadily in love with Harry, but something could still happen to interrupt the process.

He would prefer that something didn't, though.

Just as he would prefer that the Muggles pay for their mistreatment of Harry.

Harry didn't seem to want that to happen. Draco didn't care. The Dursleys were _criminals_, just as they would have been had they treated his mother or Blaise the same way. Harry had been under their care, and utterly helpless to defend himself as a child. He should have had one place where he could feel sheltered from the world, one blood relative who could love him. He didn't, and Draco was convinced that had contributed to the ease with which Harry cut himself off from other people later in life.

He would—return a few of the blows. Nothing as drastic as Unforgivable Curses, of course; Draco had no wish to see the inside of an Azkaban cell on either Harry's behalf or his own. But enough to make the Muggles understand what they had done, and repent. Perhaps atone, though Draco hadn't figured out a satisfactory means of atonement yet. After all, it wasn't as though Harry wanted them crawling at his feet and begging his forgiveness, or he could have gone back to them after his defeat of Voldemort, when he still blazed with power, and demanded that.

No, it would have to be something else. Something decidedly special.

Draco went misty-eyed thinking of it.

"Draco?"

Startled, Draco lifted his head. Harry had entered the room without his noticing. Thankful he had locked the papers away already, he stood with a graceful swirl of his robes. "And so?" he asked. "Is Theresa leaving?"

Harry glared at him, then looked away.

Draco smirked. "I thought not."

Harry sighed. "Can we go flying? I want to work all this tension out."

"For you, Harry? Anything." Draco lowered his voice, and watched Harry twitch. An intense feeling of protectiveness swept over him.

_Yes, anything. Including making sure that the people who've hurt you realize how very, very sorry they are for it._


	33. Swift In Flight

_Chapter 33- Swift in Flight_

"I don't want to play Quidditch," Harry said abruptly when Draco started to pull gloves and the Snitch out of the shed. "I just- I want the brooms, but I want to fly. Is that all right?"

"Of course," Draco said slowly, putting the equipment back. When Harry had spoken about working tension out, Draco had thought he meant to do it through a rousing game of Quidditch, but it seemed the tension was very real. Harry all but snatched his Flameflare and swung aboard as if he believed that the broom should be beaten into submission. A moment later, he was hovering, and then he was ten feet off the ground, and then he was high enough that Draco tilted back his head and sought for a long moment before he could find him.

Draco hoped that Harry wasn't expecting him to actually keep up as he mounted his own broom. He could fly close to him, but only a professional Seeker could have kept up with Harry when he wasn't intent on chasing the Snitch, and not many of those.

Draco felt a sting in his pride as he thought that, though, and decided he might as well compete. _Can't make Harry think he can do everything better than I can, after all, _he rationalized, and aimed his broom straight up.

Harry, who circled tightly near the center of the Pitch, looked considerably startled when Draco zoomed past him, yelling with all his might. Then fire lit his eyes, and he charged past Draco in turn, flicking his chin in challenge.

Draco grinned. This was the way that he liked Harry, alive and not moping. He did wish that Harry could look like that over something besides flying- over revenge, for instant. But it seemed that Harry had lost the instinct for that while he was being a good little Auror. If Draco wanted Harry to join in while he tormented the Dursleys, he would probably need to wait a long while, until the last of Harry's low self-worth bled out of his brain.

"I'll race you to the tree," Draco said, nodding over Harry's shoulder to the huge tree in the corner of the Pitch.

Harry soared like a hummingbird towards it, not even giving Draco a second to count. Draco sped after him, drawing near the bristles, and reached out a hand to grasp and jostle them.

That made Harry turn around and stare for a moment, before the stare melted into a stark glare. "You are going to _pay_ for that, Draco Malfoy," Harry said in a dark tone he probably didn't realize melted Draco's stomach. Then he slowed enough to kick back with one leg, and come dangerously close to hitting Draco in the groin.

Draco tilted back, and Harry resumed the straight flight towards the tree. Draco aimed his wand at the bristles and whispered a charm to enchant Harry's Flameflare into a will of its own. The broom tried to slow down and admire the scenery, and Draco drew closer and closer, until he was almost overtaking Harry.

By that time, though, Harry had figured out what he'd done, and found and performed the countercharm. And now he was bent flat over the broom, racing breakneck, the shadow of the tree's branches drawing closer and closer. Draco was grateful for the wideness of the Quidditch Pitch, or this wouldn't have been a contest at all.

This time, Draco tried to make the broom slick under Harry's hands. It wasn't a dangerous spell; it would just make Harry have to shake the stickiness off, and then he could go back to gripping. In the meantime, he could hold on with his knees, and Draco would shoot past him.

Of course, with Harry, nothing was ever simple. His hands slid off entirely, and if it hadn't been for his reflexes, Draco really thought he might have gone spilling to the ground. As it was, he swung upside-down, but the tight grip of his knees held firm, and then he was swinging over and around the broom, sprawling on his belly, one elbow hooked around the handle so that the cloth of his robe absorbed the oil instead of his fingers.

The glare he shot Draco was hot enough to melt steel, and made Draco's body come alive in not entirely unwelcome ways, even at the speed they were going. Draco licked his lips and met Harry eye to eye. They couldn't hide from the sexual undercurrent between them forever, and the more they put it off, the more Draco found that he wanted it.

Harry jerked his head away, face flushing, and then abruptly kicked backwards. Draco blinked. He'd wrapped his legs around the tree's trunk. Draco hadn't even been aware they were near it, so caught up was he in the shine of Harry's eyes and the way the wind tousled his hair.

Harry slid down onto a branch and grabbed the Flameflare with his sleeve carefully wrapped around his hand. "I win!" he declared, and fixed Draco with a smug look. "No thanks to a cheating Slytherin."

"Of course I was trying to make sure you lost," said Draco, dropping onto the branch just above him. "I had to do something to equalize our chances, or you would have won."

Harry snorted, and his voice was scornful. "Did you ever think that you should let the best flyer win?"

Draco raised his eyebrows. He had to fight hard to keep from breaking into a stupid grin, which he didn't understand at all. Since when did Harry make him want to _grin_, as opposed to help him get his life back in order and take him to bed? "What's the fun in that?"

"Whatever you say, Malfoy." Harry picked up his Flameflare, and whispered one more countercharm just in case. Then he surveyed Draco thoughtfully for a moment, opened his mouth, and ended up shutting it and shaking his head.

"What?" Draco leaned nearer, until only a foot or so of empty space separated their faces. "Tell me."

Harry shrugged. "It still surprises me that you're the one I'm trading jokes like this with," he said, and looked away. "That's all."

_He's still stuck on that?_ Draco found himself inexplicably irritated. Granted, Harry hadn't had a reason to think of him positively before this- he'd probably thought of Draco with a mixture of indifference and disgust when he thought of him at all- but Draco had been sure that Harry had accepted they were going to be friends now, and more than that if Draco had his say.

"It surprises you that I'm so pleasant?" he asked.

"Everything's surprising," said Harry, with a lazy wave of his hand that banished some of Draco's annoyance. It seemed that Harry wasn't inclined to dwell on the fact that they'd been virtual strangers to each other until a few days ago. "That you care for me at all. That you care for me enough to banish your mother from the house. That you don't find the amount of work connected with healing me to be daunting. That I- " And then he slammed his mouth shut so hard that Draco heard his teeth click, and shook his head again, while a dull flush rose up his cheeks.

_Oh. This is interesting. _Draco leaned a bit nearer and deepened his tone. "Do tell, Harry. You know that you can tell me _anything_, don't you?"

"Right," said Harry, and forced a light-hearted smile. "And what I really need to tell you, right now, is that I'd like to fly back to the other end of the Pitch. Race you? This time, you can have a six-second head start on me, as long as you promise not to use any charms."

"I'm comfortable here," said Draco, giving a little bounce, and then decided not to do that again. It seemed that the branch wasn't the sturdiest one he could have chosen, or it wouldn't have uttered a warning crack. "Besides, I'd like to know what you were about to say when fell so suddenly silent and your face flushed so brightly. You were surprised that you were attracted to men, weren't you?"

"That you were attracted to me," Harry corrected quickly.

"But why wouldn't I be?" Draco cocked his head. "I've had lovers of both sexes, and you're quite attractive."

Harry coughed and swung a leg over his broom again. "I could take a flight to the other end of the Pitch by myself. In fact, why don't you time me? We could see how fast the Flameflare _really_ goes."

Draco sighed. "You're making no sense at all, Harry. We've done more than snatch kisses and glimpses of each other naked, and now you're ready to flinch and cringe at the slightest hint of anything sexual? Why is that? Can you at least give me an honest answer instead of trying to fly away?"

"Theresa said it wasn't the best thing for either of us to be engaging in a sexual relationship right now, until we knew each other better and were more certain how we felt about each other."

"And, of course, you do everything Theresa says," Draco mocked him gently.

Harry tossed his head in that way he had when he was getting impatient with a conversation. "I can't even explain this nervousness to myself, Draco, so how in God's name am I supposed to explain it to you?" he snapped.

"There. Honesty." Draco eased back, smiling. The branch uttered another creak, so he stopped moving, but he let the warmth linger on his mouth, in his eyes. "That was all I really wanted, Harry. It's all right if you don't know why you're nervous. We'll figure it out, together."

Harry just nodded curtly. "Are you sure that you don't want to time me as I fly across the Pitch?"

Deciding that Harry needed this temporary escape from his presence, Draco nodded back and waved his wand, conjuring a small hourglass in the air. He made sure to color it green, and to make the grains of sand that tumbled through it small, snake-shaped, and silver. Harry gave him a disgusted look, which Draco felt free to ignore. At least it got Harry's mind off this late case of the nerves.

"Let me adjust it," he murmured, and then tapped the edge of the frame several times with his wand, so that the snake-shaped grains collected in the upper bulb. Then he nodded to Harry. "If you'll assume your position?"

"Ponce," Harry muttered, but he did as instructed, lying flat along the broom.

"_Now_," Draco said, and tapped the hourglass again.

The word wasn't even out of his mouth before Harry zoomed off, moving so fast towards the end of the Pitch that Draco could swear he was burning the air behind him. He leaned forward, eyes intent on the small speeding shape, not wanting to miss the moment when Harry would reach the end of the Pitch and turn.

He did it faster than Draco would have thought _anyone_ could fly, and his heart beat so loudly in his ears that he barely remembered to tap the hourglass and make it chime, as well as freezing the snake-shaped grains and starting a stream of lion-shaped ones that flowed the other way. Draco wondered if Harry would be more amenable to the snakes when Draco showed him the small lions.

Wait- had Harry made the turn, after all? Draco shaded his eyes with the hand not holding his wand to see.

A moment later, he decided that Harry had indeed made the turn already, but he was coming back at a slightly different angle than before, higher, so Draco's eyes had fooled him into thinking Harry was still flying straight the other way.

And a moment after that, he realized he should have stayed put, as the branch sagged beneath him and dropped him towards the ground.

* * *

Harry was turning when he heard the crack, clear as the sound of a Bludger striking flesh, echo across the Pitch. His gaze darted to the tree, and, sure enough, Draco was falling towards the ground like a doll.

He dropped his mind. There was the broom, steady beneath his hands and between his knees, and the length of space separating him from the tree and Draco, and the wind resistance.

Nothing else.

He _flew_, fast enough that it felt as if he shredded parts of his body, or at least his robes, and left them behind. He angled himself lower as he came in, because he'd seen that he would need to. He half-released one leg, so that he could more easily lean off when the moment came.

And then the moment came, and he dipped down and snagged his arm through Draco's, using the momentum to drop straight down himself for a moment before he _rolled_, and brought them under the broom and back up the other side, so that Draco was half-sitting on the broom and half-leaning against him, and Harry himself was fine, too, other than the slight popping in his knee that indicated something had been dislocated.

They hovered about half a foot above the ground, less than that from the trunk of the tree. A moment later, Harry lowered them completely.

Draco was staring at him with a very strange expression.

"What?" Harry snapped. Thought was rushing back to him now, along with pain. He rubbed his leg and grimaced. _Ouch._ It was nothing compared to some injuries he'd taken, and he'd even acquired them in the same way, acting out what had to be done to capture a criminal and _then_ feeling them, but he hadn't expected this pain. Part of him had accepted the proposition that he would be safe here, unknown even to Harry.

_That should teach you_, he chided himself. _You aren't truly safe anywhere._

"I could have cast the Levitation Charm and saved myself," Draco pointed out, rubbing his left shoulder where Harry had caught him. "There was no reason for you to injure me _and_ nearly kill yourself rescuing me."

"If you could save yourself, why didn't you?" Harry demanded.

Draco's face turned pink, then, which was a fascinating sight, because Harry hadn't seen it that often. "Dropped my wand when I fell," he murmured, after a few mumbles and clearings of his throat.

Harry snorted. "Then let's land and look for it. After that, I need a potion for this knee, and then- "

"What?" Draco at once squirmed off him, apparently because he thought he was hurting Harry by sitting there, even though Harry would have mentioned it if he'd been in any massive amount of agony. "You hurt _yourself_, too? God, Potter, has anyone ever told you that your need to play the hero is going to get you killed one day?"

"Lots of times," said Harry, rolling his eyes, and then hissing as Draco poked at the knee. "Leave it alone! It'll be fine with a potion. Besides, there's one thing that you need to say to me."

Draco peered at him between strands of blond hair. "What?"

He looked so- well, _cute_ was the only word coming to Harry's mind, though he doubted it was appropriate- that Harry was tempted to let the teasing go. But it was so much fun to tease him that he didn't. "Thank you for saving my life, Harry," he prompted, keeping his tone as patronizing as possible.

Draco looked away.

"It's not hard," Harry said, and leaned nearer. He told himself the tightness in his belly came from pain, not the heat of Draco's body so near his own. "Nine syllables. Seven words. You can do it. _Thank you_- "

"Thank you for saving my life, Harry." Draco practically spat it, and then jerked his head at the far side of the Quidditch Pitch. "It's _done_, Potter. And you'll lean on my shoulder and hop to get to the shed, believe me."

Harry smiled, satisfied. At least saving Draco's life made him feel as though he were making up, in part, for breaking his elbow the other day. And it soothed the part of him that fussed about not helping people while he was in Malfoy Manor.

And his knee might serve to distract Draco from the uncomfortable line of conversation he'd been pursuing earlier.

Even Harry didn't know why he was suddenly so nervous at the thought of sharing a bed. As Draco had pointed out, they'd done more than that.

_Maybe it's just that it feels real, now. Not something done in the heat of the moment, or because I'm healing and that's one step. Now that I'm actually considering- keeping this intact beyond the end of the month, I don't want to mess it up._

So perhaps he should start learning some more about Draco, Harry decided. That would serve an altruistic purpose _and_ a selfish one, the perfect combination for him to pursue during healing.


	34. Draco Malfoy, This Is Your Life

_Chapter 34- Draco Malfoy, This Is Your Life_

Harry settled on his bed, and winced when Draco tapped his throat. "I've swallowed all the potion, I promise," he said. Just because he had wanted to talk while Draco was trying to give him the pain potion, Draco seemed to think he _wanted_ to keep his knee out of joint.

"Just making sure." Draco sat down in front of him, caught his eye, and gave him a slow smile. Then he opened his mouth and ran his tongue over his lips. Harry cleared his throat and looked away hastily.

A hand fell on his good knee, massaging it. "How does this feel?" Draco whispered, voice gone huskier than usual.

"Good, as you well know, since that wasn't the injured one." Harry bucked his leg until the hand fell off. "Prat."

"I like that, when I'm not the one acting as if we've never slept together." Draco sat back, but Harry could feel the heat all along his right side, and knew he hadn't gone far. "Why so nervous, Harry? You might not know the complete answer, but I think I deserve to hear what you _do_ know."

"I just saved your life," said Harry, stalling. "Don't you want to talk about your dramatic near-fall instead?"

Draco's fingers cupped his chin and turned his face around, forcing him to stop staring at the intricate pattern on the blankets. Nails scraped over his bead stubble, and Harry fought to keep his eyes from closing and a moan from escaping. Damn it, he thought he'd overcome that much of his sensitivity. Perhaps not touching Draco for a few days had brought it back.

"We can talk about anything you want," Draco murmured, and then leaned forward and kissed him, so slowly that it would have been unbearable if Harry really had been aroused. As it was, he panted, near to it, by the time Draco released his mouth, and it was hard to remember his resolve as Draco sat back and watched him closely.

He grabbed hold of the resolve with both hands when it teased through his mind like the end of a banner. "I- I want to know more about you, Draco," he blurted. "What it was like when you were a child. What you did in the years since your trial. Why you decided to spend your time on nursing along a broken old Auror."

Draco arched a perfect eyebrow, and Harry was mortified to find himself even _thinking_ such adjectives. "That's really what you want to hear right now?"

Harry forced himself to keep his eyes on Draco's face, and look no lower. "Yes," he said firmly, voice steadying. "You still know more about me than I know about you. I don't think that's fair."

* * *

Draco would not have chosen to bring _fairness_ into the equation, not only because he so rarely did, but because it was not a wonder to him that he knew more about Harry; he'd been spying on him for two years, after all. But he let the subject glide naturally into this new one. Harry had forbidden him to talk about things that Draco would have been more than willing to talk about. He had not forbidden touching.

"All right, then," he said, and his hand stroked Harry's good knee as if absently while he sought for the first telling detail. He found it in a memory that seemed far more significant in retrospect than it had when first created.

"Do you remember the day that you went to Madam Malkin's, and I met you there?" he asked.

Harry's eyes shot to him, away from the hand on his knee, which he'd looked at as if it were a cobra. "I want to hear about you, Draco," he said in a warning tone. "Not about me."

Draco nodded. "This _is_ about me. I want to know if you've ever thought about why I reacted the way I did."

"Because you were a prat?"

"Truer than I like to recall, these days," Draco said, with a small wince. He stretched out beside Harry, and his hand moved from Harry's knee to his calf, playing with the edge of the robes and the line of the muscle as if they were pieces of paper. Harry drew in his breath, but didn't comment, as if he were afraid of interrupting the flow of the story. Draco concealed a smile. _He might think that, but he's really more afraid that I'll take my hand away. _"I hadn't yet learned that if I really _did_ feel above someone, the best way to show it was to treat them like their place in the world was at my feet. I thought I had to brag and puff myself up, act superior and impress them. I knew how to act with all the other children in my circle, but outside it, I treated strangers like that. I treated _you_ like that."

He looked straight at Harry, and tried to find some trace of the green-eyed boy in his face. It didn't work, though- or rather, it worked the other way around. No matter how hard he looked, he kept superimposing the adult Harry's face over the child's like a hallucination caused by too much Witches' Brew. He kept seeing green eyes more dead than they should be, and contrasting the boy's nervous animation with Harry's far-too-tight control.

"That sounds like you abandoned being a prat for being a bigger prat," Harry objected. "You weren't better than me then, and you're not better than most people around you now."

Draco sighed. This was one of the fights he could see them having years in the future, because Harry didn't understand the way that wizarding hierarchies worked. People in the Muggle world might argue and jostle for proof of superiority, but wizards _had_ it. Their heritage hadn't been lost to them, at least not if they lived properly. It wasn't so much the blood- though that was a convenient shorthand for it- as the culture, and the wealth, and the magic, the closeness to power and the freedom to do what they liked. Harry could have had all that, and he'd thrown it away to pursue a life of self-denial and self-sacrifice. Draco took no satisfaction in the gap that separated them, except the kind of gloomy, "I told you so" pleasure that came from seeing Harry's lifestyle destroying him, the way Draco had always known it would.

"That's the way I _am_," he said. "I _am_ just better than most of the people around me, Harry. And so are you, though you try not to show it."

Harry's hands clenched for a moment, and he took a deep breath. Draco's fingers moved up his thigh, this time playing more with the flesh than the cloth. Harry gave a little quiver of pleasure before he bared his teeth and returned to the attack.

"So you thought you had to demonstrate you were better than me before you could- " He cocked his head. "What did you want to do?"

"See if you were a friend or a house-elf," Draco said promptly.

Harry hissed between his teeth. "And what did you decide?" he asked.

Draco shrugged. "Our encounter was too short. And then you rejected my hand on the train, and- well. That was the end of it." He could feel a sympathetic pain for that rejection of friendship still, but it was mostly due to the fact that, if he had succeeded in claiming Harry's hand, he could have been in this position with him years earlier. He'd climbed over the slight Harry dealt him in and of itself, because it was painfully obvious that Harry had no idea how things worked in the real world.

"Can we talk about something that has nothing to do with me?" Harry asked painfully. "What was life like in Slytherin House?"

Draco grinned and rolled on his back, though he didn't move his hand. It had climbed almost to Harry's groin now, and Harry's eyes fluttered shut while he leaned into the contact. Only after five seconds did he seem to recall himself and scramble back to lean on the pillows, cheeks flushing. Draco felt his grin stretch wider.

"Quiet," he said. "Boring. We got into trouble _outside_ the common room. The prefects had orders from Professor Snape to make sure we spent most of our time there studying and discussing 'appropriate' subjects, which were pretty much homework and Quidditch and nothing else."

Harry blinked. "I- well, I always thought that Snape favored his own House more than the others."

Draco shrugged. "In the class he taught. That doesn't mean he wanted to pamper and spoil us." He felt his lip curl a bit. He'd long since understood Severus's motives. That didn't mean he'd ever come to terms with or approved of them. "He thought we could bolster our reputation in the school by studying harder and making better marks than the other Houses. And winning the House Cup and doing well at Quidditch, of course. Aside from the fact that that became impossible once you and Granger entered Hogwarts, it didn't work. No one was going to respect us as _students_ because of our schoolwork, except maybe the Ravenclaws. It helped some people get better jobs and contacts in the world beyond Hogwarts, of course, but he couldn't really help us be better-liked while we were there."

"So it was horrible, then?"

Harry's face had that look Draco hated; he was seeking to take someone else's misery and pin it on himself as guilt. Draco moved his hand again, and this time rather firmly pressed against Harry's cock. He felt it move under his hand before Harry reached down, took his wrist, and flung it away. But still he said nothing, so Draco felt poised to continue the game.

"I didn't say that," said Draco. "A lot of us came from homes that were quiet like that. And figuring out ways that the classes could be useful for us later- separating what knowledge was useful from what knowledge wasn't- could at least be interesting. And the way we reacted to each other made an enormous game that no one could ever permanently win and no one could ever permanently lose."

"It doesn't sound very relaxing."

"Oh, it wasn't," Draco said, remembering how many times his shields had risen the moment he entered Slytherin House, and how he had actually felt calmer in Transfiguration, for all that Minerva McGonagall, the paragon of Gryffindors, taught it, than anywhere else. "But it was _engaging_. It gave me other things to do. And Quidditch practice gave me plenty of exercise." He paused. "And so did hating you."

Harry said, "I thought we weren't talking about me. _Or_ touching each other," he added sharply, when Draco let his fingers ghost over Harry's balls.

"You didn't mention that last," Draco said softly. Harry was getting hard. He could feel it beneath the cloth, and he let his fingers stroke once, twice, over it before Harry seized his hand and held it still.

Harry hissed at him, the sound near Parseltongue, and said, "I thought we weren't talking about the part of your life I was in."

"But you were a part of that life," said Draco, and fluttered his eyelashes at him. Harry shifted uncomfortably. "Hating you took up a good portion of my time. I think it was a precursor of the obsession that I have for you now, though I certainly didn't think of you romantically then."

Harry sighed. "When did your life change?"

"Sixth year." Draco shuddered a little. He'd relived that time in dreams and nightmares enough that he had no desire to recount it. He renewed his efforts to distract Harry, turning his hand upside down and stroking his fingers along Harry's palm. Harry squirmed. "Or the end of fifth, really. I had this crazy idea that the Dark Lord would help me get revenge on you for putting my father in prison. And then I woke up when I went to him. In a way, the first sixteen years of my life were a dream. It was when I met him that I saw what the _real_ world was like."

"And what was it like?" Harry whispered, leaning near him.

Draco breathed out, watching as Harry's ear practically twitched from the waves of hot air. "Horrible," he said. "A place where people killed each other for power, and tortured each other because they thought _he'd_ like it. A place where my own aunt was mad, and my mother would do anything to save my life, including concoct a plan that killed other people. And where I had to kill."

"Which you couldn't do," Harry whispered.

Draco inclined his head a fraction. "I woke up again on the Astronomy Tower," he said softly. That night blazed black and green in his imagination, the colors of death and the Dark Mark, with only a tiny spot of white for Dumbledore. "I learned something so important about myself that nothing else has seemed quite as important since. Everything I am now built from there."

He lifted his gaze to Harry's face, and smiled. There were warm flesh and warm eyes beside him, and they could chase the chill of that night away. "Well, one thing is as important."

Harry sighed. "Draco, I want to know you, not your obsession with me."

"I'm tired of talking," Draco whispered, and slid up the bed, and kissed Harry full on the lips again. Harry wavered, mouth opening as if to protest, and Draco slid his tongue inside. He felt his own clothes tighten uncomfortably, and his mouth and his hips moved to the same rhythm.

Drawing back, he whispered, "Are you really too nervous to allow this, Harry? Don't you want it?" Harry arched his neck as if to bare his throat to a werewolf's teeth, his eyes so wide they could become the center of Draco's universe, his world, if he allowed them to do so.

"I just- " Harry closed his eyes. His voice, when it emerged, was tiny. "I just think we should wait. Be careful. Listen to Theresa."

"That's not a philosophy for a Gryffindor, and it's not a philosophy for me," Draco whispered. "I've wanted you for so long, Harry, and I've only had you a few times. They barely count, except the last one. I want. I _want_ too much." He slid his hand beneath Harry's robes, and the shirt underneath, and skin was there. "Your knee's healed. I'm still alive. I didn't die in the fall. I say we celebrate."

Harry hesitated again, as if fighting himself. Draco ran his fingers hard through his hair, something he knew turned Harry's scalp into a mass of tingles.

Harry whispered, "Yes. Damn it, yes." Then he groaned, and then he rolled so that Draco was beneath him, and said, "I shouldn't be doing this, but I want it too much."

Draco couldn't prevent the smile that exploded across his face, any more than he could prevent himself from biting into Harry's neck and beginning to remove his robes.


	35. Mutual Assured Seduction

Thanks again for the reviews!

I may have mentioned this before, but I really, really can't write a top-bottom dynamic. So, first of all, they will switch off, and second, the dynamic in this chapter is a bit unusual.

_Chapter 35- Mutual Assured Seduction_

Harry arched his neck, wondering why being _bitten_, of all things, turned him on. But it seemed that it did, and he wouldn't- he couldn't- hold back the groan that wrenched its way out of his belly.

He fell down as Draco tugged at his robes, but then recovered himself and seized his wand. He still remembered the charm he'd learned in the first days of Auror training, when his teachers had pointed out that sometimes the best way to capture a criminal was to embarrass and humiliate him, rather than trying to duel him. A murmur, and a wave, and Draco's clothes were off. Draco blinked, looking disconcerted, but he also let go of Harry's robes, which gave Harry the ability to remove them himself. He did a much better job.

He sat back up, wearing only his pants and feeling rather smug, to find Draco's eyes fixed on him.

And _fuck_, that hungry spark was back, a look Harry wasn't sure he'd seen since the night of their dinner with Narcissa. Throat so dry that he licked his lips and wished for water, he pulled his pants off, flinching a bit as they caught at his erection and made it bob. That _hurt_ when it happened too fast.

"Finally." Draco's voice was deep enough to make Harry's muscles contract. _Why do I have to be attracted to his voice, of all things? You would think that what his hands do to me would be enough._

"Finally, what?" Harry asked, looking down his body. He didn't think he was harder than he'd been last time they did this, and it was _impossible_ for him to be any more naked.

"Finally, I see you looking at me like you want it," said Draco, and leaned forward to kiss Harry again.

"I like that!" Harry hissed, indignant. "Didn't I- " And then he lost the flow of his words under Draco's teeth and tongue.

He let himself be pressed backward for the moment; the way Draco devoured his mouth, and sank his fingers into Harry's side, searching for sensitive spots, frankly felt too good. Then Draco hit something that made him buck and _cry_ out into his mouth. Draco pulled back, blinking.

"Ticklish?" he asked.

Harry shook his head. "No." He jumped as Draco hit that place again. It seemed to be under his ribs, low on his right side, which was certainly a fine place to be ticklish, but the sensations that ran through him when Draco touched him there were- distracting, nothing he wanted to stop. "Sensitive."

Draco pinched him there.

Harry thrust his hips up and pressed his head back into the pillows, groaning. "Oh, _God_, don't stop," he said.

"Wild horses couldn't get me to stop now," Draco muttered, starting to work his way down Harry's body. "Or my mother walking in to tell me that she's staying the next month in the Manor."

Luckily, that killed the mood enough for Harry to remember that Draco had done this to him _last_ time, reduced him to a puddle, and he thought it was more than time to return the favor. He shifted, locked his legs around Draco's waist, gasped as their erections brushed together, nobly resisted distraction, and threw him backwards. Draco blinked, as if trying to decide why he was seeing the ceiling instead of Harry's skin, then turned his head.

"I didn't know you could do that," he said.

"Benefits of dating an Auror," Harry muttered, and unlocked his legs enough to roll further down the blankets. He could feel lust and longing bubbling behind his eyes, his skull, his jaw- everywhere on his face. Time to take advantage of it before he lost it again to the inevitable fear of making a mistake.

He'd never done this before, and doubt jumped up and down in his stomach as he eyed Draco's cock. But, God, could it really be _that_ much harder than bursting into a dark building when he knew a Death Eater waited in every shadow, or, for that matter, facing down Madam Bones when she came to call him back again?

He opened his mouth, carefully wrapping his lips around his teeth, and licked up and down Draco's cock before he could think up an excuse not to.

Draco gave a sound which would be best written down, Harry felt, as "_Ungh-HA!_" and thrust his hips forward. Harry glared at him- that had felt as if it nearly broke his jaw- and sucked him into his mouth to teach him. Of course, judging by the expression that washed over Draco's face at that, it didn't seem likely he was in _pain._

"Harry, Harry, that feels so..." And he broke off into babbling noises that sounded like broken names and moans of feeling, his hips still thrusting. Harry pinned them with his elbows, because he wanted to keep his hands for the task of stroking the free portion of Draco's erection up and down.

This was certainly more _sensual_ than anything he did while sitting behind a desk and writing on paperwork. Harry's nose was full of a penetrating smell that he might have said was incense if he smelled it in an innocent context, just because of its strength, but didn't think he could ever again associate with anything but sex. Draco's flesh slid up and down in his mouth, and refused to behave like any food he'd ever eaten. Besides, the taste pooling on his tongue was hardly food-like, either, just salty. Harry swallowed reflexively, and Draco thrashed like a hooked fish.

_Likes that, does he? _Harry swallowed again, and then, wondering if it was a good idea, dipped one of his hands down to fondle Draco's balls. Draco's legs sprawled wider, hitting the blankets on either side of Harry with a solid _thump_, and his hips fought an inconclusive battle with Harry's elbows.

_That's a yes, then, _Harry thought smugly, and went on sucking strongly. He didn't know exactly what would happen when Draco came; he suspected he would have to struggle not to drown. But that would be worth the satisfaction of knowing he'd dropped the same pleasure on Draco that Draco had on him last time they had done this.

And then Draco said, "Stop!" quite clearly, so there could be no mistaking it.

Harry felt uneasy; had he had done something wrong? But he covered it with a glare as he eased his mouth off Draco's cock and licked at his sore and swollen gums. It felt as though he'd been chewing hard sweets for an hour without being allowed to swallow. "Shut up, Malfoy, you were enjoying that."

"I know," Draco said, and the fire in his eyes had leaped up to such heights that Harry caught his breath. "But I want- I at least wanted to _ask_ you if you'd let me fuck you."

And Harry froze, and couldn't think of a single thing to say.

* * *

Draco frowned when he realized that Harry's face was pale and his jaw poised somewhere between open and clenched in panic. _Well, _he reminded himself, _you didn't know that he'd say yes._

But he had wanted to ask. God, he'd dreamed about having Harry suck him for so long, and he was enjoying it, as Harry said, but with every new thing they achieved, it seemed he wanted more. There had been a time when he thought he'd be content to have Harry in his house for a month, after all, and another when he would have said that getting a handjob from Harry was enough. But- not now. He'd live easily enough with a refusal, but he wanted to ask.

So he waited, eyes locked on Harry's face, showing no sign of backing down or giving in. Because he knew Harry wasn't that afraid. Already the panic was melting, and he eyed Draco's cock with a new kind of speculation, as something that would fit in his arse instead of his mouth. And if he'd been terrified, he'd never have put his mouth there in the first place.

Finally, Harry gave his face that same narrow-eyed glance. "You hurt me too badly, and you'll never do it again," he warned.

_He couldn't have found a more effective threat, _Draco thought, smugness and joy exploding through him. He eased Harry backwards so that he stayed on the pillows, and whispered into his ear, "You'll be _helpless_ with the pleasure of it, Harry. Worse than the massage."

Harry's hips gave that little buck again, and his erection was, by now, softly shiny with pre-come. But he managed to raise an eyebrow, and speak without stuttering more than a few times. "Well, get on with it then, Malfoy, oh master of good ideas," he said.

Draco rolled over to reach for the bottle of oil in the table next to the bed, every nerve in his body buzzing and filled with light. He would make this _so good_ for Harry that the next step would be Harry asking to fuck him, to see what it felt like from the other side. And if that happened-

Well. Draco might not know yet if he was fully in love with Harry or not, but he knew what that kind of pleasure and intimacy could do to a Gryffindor. Having Harry and letting him have Draco would go a long way towards winning Harry's heart.

Not, of course, that Harry was fool enough to stay with someone he hated just because the sex was good. He'd proven over the last eleven years exactly how little effect physical pleasure had on him. But Draco intended all the tipping power that good sex could give him to be on his side.

* * *

Harry was nervous.

If Draco sensed he was nervous, though, he might pause and hold back and treat Harry like a delicate thing. And Harry didn't want that. He was sick of thinking of himself as crippled, emotionally or in life experience, but he was even sicker of Draco thinking of him like that. So he spread his legs, eyed the bottle of oil in Draco's hand, and decided the best way around his nervousness was to snipe.

"Sure that'll be enough to ease the passage of your mighty cock?"

"Who's done this before, and who hasn't?" Draco retorted, drizzling a bit of the oil onto his fingers. It was clear, or perhaps the color of sweat, and Harry could barely see it gleaming. "Now, _hush._" His finger eased down between Harry's legs and then gently past his balls.

Harry blinked. He hadn't spent a lot of time touching himself there, for obvious reasons, but he wouldn't have said it was so sensitive.

_I'm doomed to find practically every fucking thing arousing- _

And then Draco pressed _inward_, and, oil or not, that _hurt_, thanks.

Harry bent down, yelping, and tried to get the finger out of him. "_Ouch!_" he pointed out, when Draco stubbornly kept it there. "God, Malfoy, are you trying to kill me?"

"It'll get better," Draco murmured, moving the finger in what was apparently a circle, not that Harry's aching arse cared. "The oil takes some time to work. It would help if you could use your breath for something besides hyperventilating."

"What did I tell you about hurting me?" Harry snapped, trying to relax. But, urgh, the sensation in his arse felt so foreign. He couldn't believe that some blokes actually liked it. Perhaps he wasn't gay after all. "That- "

Draco pushed in a second finger. Perhaps he thought that Harry wouldn't notice. But Harry did, and he grimaced and hissed, throwing his head back. Draco's fingers continued pressing in, and Harry tried to tell himself this was like the annual physical examination he had to undergo as an Auror. The Healer would probe and poke and put his fingers where they weren't wanted. Harry usually got through it by staring at the windows and thinking about his latest case, because the Healers never found anything wrong with him anyway.

Amazingly, it did seem that he could relax further than he had known he would after a bit, and the fingers slid inside more easily. But he was still uncomfortable and _not at all aroused_. Any experience that could have him comparing it to the interference of a Healer wasn't a candidate for Harry's top ten most exciting experiences of all time.

"What are you doing, Malfoy, digging for gold?" he demanded, when Draco kept circling the fingers around.

Draco sighed. "There's a place called your prostate, Harry," he said. "Feels rather good when you touch it. I was looking for that, but I'm having trouble finding it. It might be easier with three fingers." He paused a moment, to add more oil to his hand, then slid another finger in before Harry could object.

On and on the pressing and digging and circling went, and then Harry decided that perhaps Draco had had a good idea after all, because the fingers caught on something and he jolted and _howled._

"There we are," Draco said, face intolerably superior, and brushed it again. Harry hissed and pushed himself onto the fingers, and if it hadn't felt so good, he would have been flushing in embarrassment instead of excitement. Draco kept his fingers there for a few more moments, as if making sure that Harry understood how good it could be, and then crouched and slidinto position. "Ready?"

Harry nodded, and Draco lifted his legs up, draping them over his shoulders. Harry tilted his head, but the angle was awkward to watch Draco ease into his body.

It still hurt more than three fingers, and this time Harry threw back his head because of the snarl of pain forming on his lips. Draco bent down and kissed him, though, distracting him a bit. His tongue was still as sensitive as ever, and his lips. Harry became caught up enough in the kiss not to realize the moment when Draco stopped moving forwards, and started to ease backwards. Then he had to pay attention, because his legs had nearly slipped off Draco's sweat-slicked shoulders.

"God, Harry," Draco gasped, "you _feel_ so good." And there was a brand new spark in his eyes, one that caused Harry to feel smug in turn, because _he_ was the one who had put it there.

"Well, fuck me, then," he panted out.

Draco gave a half-growl and threw himself forward, sending Harry skidding across the pillows until he almost hit the headboard. Harry felt a flash of pain from his recently healed knee, but Draco hit his prostate on the next stroke, and then squeezed him just after the next, and everything was fine again.

He found that he really _liked_ this, liked throwing his weight forwards as much as he could to meet Draco, liked the feeling of someone pushing and striving and shoving into him. It was like a fight, or a duel, and Harry felt the same savage pleasure he sometimes felt then flowing under his skin. Usually, it wasn't an emotion he liked to encourage, because he didn't hunt Dark wizards for personal satisfaction; he hunted them because they were a danger to society. Now, he had the feeling Draco wouldn't mind.

That intense smell hung in the air around them again, and Harry could feel the flex and the snap of muscles he barely ever exercised, and had the feeling his arse would be _damn_ sore tomorrow. He didn't care. He thrust back again, and stared into Draco's eyes, and thought about doing this to him, and the fact that Draco was completely focused on him right now-

At the last, he wasn't sure whether that knowledge alone would have been enough to send him into climax, without the hand on him and one final push to his prostate, but it felt that way at the time. Spasms ran through his body like echoes of their fucking, and Harry hissed out in triumph as he coated Draco's belly with white wetness.

Draco stiffened just a moment later, and Harry almost regretted the loss of his deep thrusts, though the sensation of wetness inside him was interesting, too. And then Draco collapsed weakly backwards, and Harry fell on top of him, unable to use his own muscles to hold himself up.

He lay there, panting, for some minutes, but he recovered more quickly; he was probably more used to intense activity than Draco was, though not this kind. He picked up his wand and cast Cleaning Charms on them, then stretched his arms out with a fierce yawn. He felt- quite fantastic, actually.

Then Draco's hand rose, and fisted in his hair, and pulled him down for a kiss hard enough to make their teeth clack, and he whispered over and over again, strong as dawn or daylight, "Wonderful, felt so good, God, wonderful, _Harry_..." And so it went, while Harry did his best to make sure there was no blood involved in the kiss. Draco didn't seem to care.

The triumph returned to Harry as he deepened the kiss. He felt really _damn_ good, and if this had been a contest, he was sure he'd won.

Or at least held Draco to a draw.

_Or maybe we both won._


	36. Draco's Plans Go Ahead

Thank you for all the reviews!

_Chapter 36- Draco's Plans Go Ahead_

Draco was prepared for panic when he woke up, but he found Harry just lying beside him on the bed, one arm slung down so that his hand trailed across the carpet. His fingers scraped it now and then; Draco thought it was that faint sound which had awakened him.

He propped himself up on his elbow, and only then realized that the cleaning charms had been less than fully effective. He grimaced as sweat and stickiness pulled across his skin. Harry looked sorry, and hastily waved his wand, cleansing Draco quickly and thoroughly enough to satisfy his needs. He nodded, and focused his attention on Harry's face.

"No regrets?" he asked quietly.

Harry blinked. "After sex like that?"

Draco was surprised into laughter, but he had to watch Harry through it. Harry's expression looked genuinely puzzled, but Draco had experienced his lies by omission before. "I just wanted to know," he said. "Have you come to terms with being gay? It wasn't something you were entirely comfortable with a few days ago."

Harry shrugged. "It does have its minor discomforts." He shifted and reached down, gingerly, to touch his obviously sore arse.

"There are healing spells for that, you twit," said Draco, barely able to contain his exasperation. It seemed Harry would still rather lie there and suffer than complain and let someone help him. He spoke one of the simpler spells, which he'd used after the rare lovers who insisted that they fuck him, never the other way around, and Harry gave a soft gasp, his eyes widening.

"Much better," he said, giving Draco a faint smile. "Thanks."

"And the other discomforts?" Draco pushed, because he wanted to know. He wasn't content with a secret relationship- though God knew how it could be secret, really, now that he'd kidnapped Harry from the middle of the Ministry and insured that everyone thought they'd been sleeping together for months. "Can you call yourself my lover? Admit to it outside the bedroom?"

Harry snorted. "Sod off, Malfoy. You sound like Theresa."

"I want to know," said Draco, feeling consumed by urgency. "I _deserve_ to know. Because, Harry- well, I could change my mind in a few months, maybe, but right now, it feels like this is _it._ What I want to have for the rest of my life."

Harry stared at him, then laughed weakly. "You can't- Draco, we've fucked once, or twice if you count the first time as fucking, and I haven't even lasted as long as some of the others you mentioned- "

"You've lasted two years longer than anyone else, already," Draco reminded him.

Harry flushed. _It figures_, Draco thought. _Now that fucking doesn't embarrass him as much, he finds something else to be embarrassed about. _

"That was different," Harry said stoutly. "_I_ was different, then. As I become more myself again- as I heal- well, Draco, you might find that you don't like me very much." He lifted his eyes and locked them with Draco's, with a courage that had seemed beyond him just at that moment. "You didn't like me very much in school, as I recall."

"And there you were different yet again," Draco muttered. "And so was _I_. Different, I mean."

"Will you tell me more about that?" Harry asked, with an eagerness that showed Draco how badly he wanted to deflect the conversation away from their current topic. "More about what you were like, I mean. I can't imagine that you just did homework and what the Prefects and Snape told you to and were always happy except when you were torturing me."

Draco let the conversation go for now. Right after they'd fucked properly for the first time wasn't the best minute to approach it, he had to admit. It would wait until Harry had fucked him, too. The thought distracted him with a bolt of pleasure to the groin, and he had to think for a long moment before he could shift the ground of his thoughts to what Harry wanted to hear about.

"No, I hardly spent all my time in the common room working on my essays like a good little boy," he said, thinking of a story Harry would probably like to hear. How he'd found out just _how_ completely stupid Pansy was was always good for a laugh. "There was exploring the school, too, and getting Hufflepuffs in trouble."

Harry frowned. "I don't remember Hufflepuffs as being in trouble especially often."

Draco waved a hand loftily. "It wasn't the same kind of trouble Gryffindors got into. You probably didn't even notice it. But it was fun to make them lose points for screaming at nothing." His smile widened. He couldn't help it. This memory was still amusing, one he had pressed between the leaves of his mind so that he could take it out and peer at it whenever he liked. "Especially when we made them scream right outside Professor Sprout's office."

Harry laughed aloud. "I can't even remember where Professor Sprout's office _was._"

"Oh, near the Hufflepuff common room. Which wasn't far from the dungeons, of course. It was easy to slip across the entrance hall, scare a Hufflepuff, and make her scream. We learned the Notice-Me-Not Charm fairly young, you know."

"Pity that it never helped you against me," Harry muttered.

"Yes, well, you had the Invisibility Cloak," Draco retorted without rancor. "Unfair competition."

Harry's face shuttered. Draco blinked, as a connection in his mind fired. "Harry?" he asked. "What happened to the Invisibility Cloak? I haven't seen it since I started watching you."

"Yes, well, you wouldn't have, would you?" Harry's fists twisted in the sheets in front of him. "It's an _Invisibility_ Cloak."

"Harry," Draco said softly. He recognized that expression on Harry's face from the time he'd spent dealing with Auror partners who actually tried to make friends with him, and it irritated him to have it turned on him. "What happened to it?"

"You were telling me your story," Harry pointed out. "I think we've spent quite enough time covering my various dysfunctions."

The hardness behind his tone, however light it was, told Draco that the story of the Cloak was not a happy one. He hesitated for a moment, staring at Harry, wondering if he should try to worm it out of him, and then decided to tell his story first. It might relax Harry, and induce a sense of obligation that would make him tell the truth when his turn came.

Besides, it _was_ funny.

"Now, usually, it was me and Gregory and Vincent scaring the Hufflepuffs," Draco began, and saw Harry relax. He probably thought he'd been let off the hook. _Not even close, Harry._ "But Pansy begged to go along one evening. This was in third year. She'd just discovered flirting, and I think she regretted the hours when I was out of her reach."

"Were you ever engaged to marry her?" Harry asked curiously.

Draco gave him a small smile and didn't reply to the question. "Well, we didn't know how much help she'd be, but we thought she could at least hold the Dungbombs while we threw them. Our plan was to make it seem as if the Hufflepuffs had been hoarding Dungbombs and were setting them off near the common room."

"And Professor Sprout would believe that?" Harry asked, lifting his eyebrows.

Draco laughed. "There were two Hufflepuff seventh-years who were always after each other. One of them would have done it, and we'd already worked out the means to plant them under his bed, earlier, when we found out the Hufflepuff password. So, yes, she'd believe it. So would the rest of the House and the rest of the school, for that matter."

"I don't remember that _at all_," Harry muttered.

"Yes, well, you wouldn't, would you?" Draco asked, trying to quell his resentment at the memories of Harry running about the school with Ron and Hermione and ignoring him entirely. "Always self-involved."

Harry looked away.

"Oh, no, you don't," Draco breathed softly, grabbing his chin and tilting his face back. "I've worked too hard to let you go back into your shell now. It was a _joke_, Harry. I know you had better things on your mind that year. Like having a murderer after you, for example."

Harry just nodded, and Draco couldn't tell if he as grateful for the reinterpretation or not. "What happened?" he prompted.

"So we had the Dungbombs planted," Draco went on, "and Pansy, Vince, Greg, and I waited outside the common room door for a group of Hufflepuffs to come out. We were in a side-corridor. We'd scare them, cover their robes with filth, make them scream, and then make the seventh-year look bad when Sprout searched the common room. It was the perfect plan.

"But Pansy decided to _chatter_ when a good-sized group was in the corridor. As if they couldn't hear her, just because they couldn't see her!" Draco shook his head. Pansy had sometimes been a good friend, but never to have along on a prank. "And of course they heard us, and turned towards us."

He grinned. "I immediately started saying, 'Pansy, I am _shocked!_' I was loud enough to wake the dead. Of course Professor Sprout came out of her office, and there was Pansy red-handed, with all the Dungbombs. And, even better, she shrieked and flung them at Sprout when she saw her."

Harry snickered. "Did she hit her?"

"Oh, yes." The sight of the Head of Hufflepuff with brown stains on her robe and a complicated look of exasperation on her face was perhaps the best part of the memory. "I took the time to explain that of course the prank had all been Pansy's idea, and we came along hoping to talk her out of it. Vince and Greg backed me up. And Pansy couldn't say anything until it was too late- she's never been good with reacting quickly when she's surprised- and then she was one against three. She lost House points and got detention, and more detention when they searched and found those Dungbombs in the seventh-year boys' room. No one believed that Pansy hadn't done it. Professor Snape was just angry at her for getting _caught_."

"That was- rather mean of you," said Harry, looking as if he were nobly attempting to sit on his laughter.

Draco waved a hand airily. "It had to be done," he said. "It was for the good of the species, really." He smiled and leaned towards Harry. "Did you know, by the way, that you look very good when you laugh?"

"And no time else?" Harry looked half-offended, or at least sought to, but he really wasn't convincing.

"Of course not," Draco breathed, and Harry shifted at the sound of his voice. "You look good to me any time. When you smile, when you collapse after sex, when you're flying." He let one hand rise and cup Harry's cheek, rubbing it. Harry leaned towards him, eyelids drooping, body conveying interest. Draco kept his voice light as he spoke. "Telling me about your past."

Harry closed his eyes a moment, and then sighed. "I should have seen that coming, shouldn't I?"

Draco nodded solemnly, and leaned forward, whispering, "I want to know, Harry. You're important to me. I told you that. Do you still doubt me?"

Harry shook his head. "It's not that. Just- " He shrugged. "You heard what I told Theresa, and you knew me in Hogwarts, and you've watched me for the past two years and found out what I did as an Auror. What else is there to know?"

"I want to know what happened to your Invisibility Cloak."

"That's not a pleasant story." Tension had coiled in Harry's muscles, but he didn't try to move away from Draco's stroking hand.

"Tell me," Draco said, lips an inch away from Harry's ear.

"I burned it."

For a moment, Draco thought he hadn't heard correctly. "What?" he asked.

"It was the night I killed Voldemort," said Harry, and his eyes were wide, but Draco could see that Harry was staring past him, not really seeing anything in the room. "I wanted him dead so _badly_. And then he was. And I was- well, I was satisfied. That was how I knew I wanted to be an Auror, because I didn't feel happy about my revenge then, just gladness that I'd been able to do my duty. I thought that was an acceptable motive for an Auror.

"But there was- there was this madness that came over me a few hours later. I don't know how to describe it. I just wanted to be _free_ of most of the things I'd been carrying around with me, the things from my past, even the ones that helped me destroy Voldemort. So I made a bonfire and burned the Invisibility Cloak and a few other things." From the lines of tension along Harry's body, Draco knew better than to ask what those had been. "Not everything, of course. There was an album with all the pictures of my parents I had in the world. I kept that. But that was another reason I gave all my money away, I think. I didn't want to be who I'd been. I knew people were going to valorize me because I killed Voldemort, but everything else- I could get rid of things that I didn't want, possessions that tied me to the past."

Draco didn't say how unutterably sad he found the fact that Harry had wanted to shut out the memories of his friends and his parents rather than hold on to them. But, of course, that was part of what had led to his emotional repression of the years since. And- well. Harry had learned even before then, by the sound of what he told Theresa, not to value himself much.

"Was what you told Theresa about the Dursleys true in every respect?" he asked.

Harry jolted, and frowned at him. "I wasn't lying to her."

"No, but I think you made it sound better than it was." Draco didn't move his hand. "They neglected you, you said. Starved you some. Made you do chores that you shouldn't have to do." He paused. "Made you sleep in a cupboard. Told you lies about your parents."

Harry bared his teeth. "Yes. And that is _all_ they did, Draco." His voice was clipped and harsh. "They never hit me, they never raped me, they never did the awful things that you hear about, the things that you _see_, when you're called in on a child abuse case." He moved his face away from Draco's touch for the first time. "Wizards can do a lot worse things to children than Muggles can."

Draco said nothing, because it was so obvious that Harry didn't want to talk about this. He'd left the past behind. If he could have burned his memories of the Dursleys the way he'd burned the Invisibility Cloak, Draco was certain that he would have.

That meant he would never take revenge on the Dursleys.

So Draco had to take revenge for him.

_They did abuse you, Harry. They twisted your mind. They're the source of a good many of your problems, I can tell._

_And for that, they'll pay._


	37. Draco's Plans Accelerate

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_Chapter 37- Draco's Plans Accelerate_

"This is the first time that you won't be spying on my session with Theresa, isn't it?" Harry remarked, staring curiously at him.

Draco sniffed and swung the cloak around his shoulders, then paused to consider the figure he made in the mirror. Yes, quite dashing. Besides that, there was another purpose for the fine, soft sable cloak he wore, with a hood that could easily be cast over his head, but Harry didn't need to know that. "I prefer the term _observing_, Harry. But yes, it is. If there's something that you need to say to her in private, perhaps it's the best time to say it."

"There's almost nothing that she won't disapprove of," Harry said dryly.

Draco turned from the mirror and regarded him. "And what about you, Harry? Do you disapprove of it?"

He really wanted to know. Harry had not seemed unhappy with their experience of two nights ago, but neither had it been repeated. When Draco wanted to have sex, Harry put him off with talk about thinking. And he certainly did have a thoughtful expression on his face every time Draco surprised him, so there might even be some truth to that.

The truth was _not_ that he was a rotten lover, Draco assured his faltering self-confidence. And since when did his confidence falter? He _knew_ he had done a fantastic job, and persuaded Harry out of that nonsense of not liking men once and for all. If Harry didn't feel like fucking right now, they would wait. That was all it was. Harry wanted some time to think. God knew he should have it.

"Where are you going, again?" Harry asked.

Draco concealed a smirk. Harry really _hadn't_ been paying attention to the cover story Draco gave him. That meant, of course, that he was less likely to notice any gaps or inconsistencies in the details. And that suited Draco just fine. Harry wasn't ready for revenge yet. When he was, then Draco would tell him the whole truth, and watch as a contented smile spread across his face.

"Out," he said, and slipped his hand under Harry's jaw, tilting his head up for a kiss. Harry gave it to him, and Draco drew back before he could grow dizzy with that success and push too far, too fast. "I _do_ have business interests to take care of, given the Malfoy money, Harry. And I really should visit my mother, and make sure that she knows she isn't welcome to return to the Manor any time soon."

Predictably, Harry flushed crimson. "Of course you should visit your mother," he said. "But, Draco, are you sure that you want to keep her out of the Manor? She- "

"Did her best to turn you against me, and get you kidnapped," Draco finished calmly. "And you are the most precious thing in the Manor to me, Harry. Forgive me for thinking she might do worse than that when she comes back again." He knew his mother. She would take any sign of yielding on his part as a certainty that he'd forgiven her and be up to her old tricks within moments of stepping through the Manor's door. Draco wanted to make sure she understood that he wouldn't tolerate that, and so he would leave her _outside_ the door until such time as she learned to behave.

"She's still your mother," said Harry, and Draco saw, as clearly as someone seeing to the bottom of a clear pond, how much he didn't want to be responsible for turning Draco against his family.

"We squabble like this all the time," said Draco, and grinned when Harry gave him an incredulous glance. "It's true, Harry. That's why I could send her away like that. One of the houses is always kept furnished and ready for her, in case she's done something wrong this week and needs to leave."

Harry opened his mouth, fumbled for words, and closed it again, shaking his head. "I can't imagine doing that to my mother," he whispered.

"You value family." Draco reached out, plunged his fingers into Harry's hair, and slowly drew them back towards himself. Harry arched to follow the motion, a noise very like a purr breaking from his throat. Draco grinned at him. "Of course you'd want to have a closer relationship with your mother. But if you'd grown up with them- who knows? The charm of parents is rather reduced when you see them every day."

Harry opened eyes that looked on the verge of being drugged, and sighed. "You need to leave," he said. "Or you'll be late to see your mother, and I'll be late to my session with Theresa."

Draco placed a knee on the bed and his hands on Harry's chest, bearing him gently down. "I could arrange for neither to be troubled by the lateness," he murmured, and blew on Harry's ear.

A breath, a moment of temptation, and then Harry pushed at him. "Go on, Draco," he said. "I hope that- well, someday, I mean, if we- I want Narcissa to like me, when she can. Just in case. And I don't think she'd forgive me if I made you late."

Draco nodded reluctantly, regretting the lie now. Of course, that would have done nothing about Theresa's time of arrival.

His eyes on Harry in a silent promise, he Apparated. He would indeed be visiting his mother in the small house she used later. But first, he was going to Surrey.

There were some Muggles he had to terrify as the first stage in the long, long process of getting vengeance for Harry.

* * *

"Well," said Theresa, looking as pleased to see both Harry and her tea as she always did, "why don't we talk about Draco, Harry? Seeing as he's not here to stop us, and you might have some things to say about him that you wouldn't want to say in his presence." She eyed him calmly when he remained silent. "Nothing at all?" she asked gently.

"Nothing you might approve of," Harry said, and folded his arms. He knew he was being transparent as fuck. He did not care.

"Forget about whether I approve or not, Harry." Theresa's eyes were unearthly in their steadiness. "Tell me what you think of him. It's not up to me, ultimately, to say whether you should be friends or lovers, or how long Draco's obsession might last. It's up to me to listen to you, and try to have you talk about the things that truly _bother_ you. Is Draco one of those things?"

Harry linked his fingers together in front of him and stared at them. But the tug of knowing that Draco wasn't in the next room, listening and watching through the enchanted window, was irresistible. "Maybe," he muttered.

"That wasn't so hard to say, was it?" Theresa encouraged him, and then picked up her tea to blow away the steam. "Come, Harry, tell me more. What does 'maybe' mean? Does he bother you in ways you haven't confessed before now? Or are you unsure if he bothers you?"

Harry sighed and leaned back in the chair, staring at the ceiling. Draco could probably have one of the house-elves listening in on the conversation. Or he could have cast a spell that retrieved the memories of words from the walls. But Harry would just have to trust that he hadn't, and speak his mind.

"He frightens me, sometimes," he said lowly. "He insists that I'm the most important person in his life, and I- I can't understand that. He loves his mother. He's known her all his life. Why in the world would he decide that _I'm_ the most important one? Even if it's true, it bothers me, because I don't want to come between them." His throat tightened. The only memory he had of his mother was her voice screaming. He would _not_ be the cause of anything even a tenth as horrible between Draco and Narcissa, not if he could help it.

"She disapproves of you?" Theresa asked.

"She _hates_ me." Harry wrapped his arms around his body and shivered slightly. "I can't even blame her. I'm the reason her husband went to prison, the reason he died there. And I would bring exactly the wrong kind of notoriety to the Malfoy family as a partner for Draco. Some people would always be certain he'd seduced or corrupted me. And Narcissa has contacts of her own. There are people who would shun Draco if she asked them to, at least as long as he was dating me."

"That worries you more for Draco's sake than your own, doesn't it?" Theresa asked, her voice as soft as rain.

"Yes," Harry said. "I care about him, and he doesn't seem to care about what living with me will cost him." He looked up and locked eyes with Theresa, then forced the next words out. "I've already cost people who care for me their lives. I don't want to do it again, in any sense of the word. Even if it's 'only' a social life. I want Draco to have everything he did before he kidnapped me. But he can't, and- well, if the cost I bring to him is greater than the pleasure he derives from me, then I need to leave. I've thought and thought about that since- Sunday." He was not going to tell Theresa what they had done on Sunday. It wasn't her business. "But I don't know a way to broach the subject, either. He keeps insisting that I matter the most to him. Today he even said that he and Narcissa have disputes like this all the time."

"And who says that is not the truth?" Theresa said.

Harry clenched a hand in front of him. "It might be. I can't really accuse him of lying. But I don't want them fighting over _me._ His mother is the only relative Draco has left. It's not worth it, his dating me, if it hurts his relationship with her."

Theresa hesitated for a long time, then said, gently, "Harry. I do not approve of Draco's obsession with you, nor the way he kidnapped you. But I will say that I have seen improvements in you that I do not think are possible with my care alone." She drew her wand. Harry instinctively tensed, but she only met his eyes and said, "Do you mind if I cast the Soul's Mirror spell?"

Harry gave her permission with a wave of his hand, and watched as the picture of his bonds with other people appeared again. The one connecting him to Theresa was green, and the one that stretched away in Draco's direction a brilliant color, somewhere between blue and violet. Harry swallowed.

"He does you so much good," Theresa said. "He is helping to heal you, Harry, to let you live again. Until and unless you see more evidence of your presence costing him than an argument with his mother, I think you should remember that he can make his own decisions, too." She softened the sting of the words with a smile, and then banished the colors. "Now. What do you think is most important between you? What basis does your relationship have?"

"Trust," said Harry. "I trust him to keep his word, and care for me now. It's why I can't accuse him of lying about the fight with his mother."

"Then trust him until he lies to you," Theresa urged. "You've managed the first and hardest step, Harry, listening to him above the promptings of your own instincts. And you trust him not to do things that you don't want, don't you, unless they're for your own good?"

Harry let his breath out slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, I trust him. But it would be so hard to do that if I found out he lied to me."

* * *

Draco consulted the photograph the Auror, Dogfoot, had snapped for him, and then looked up and studied the Muggle home in front of him. Yes. This was the house where Harry had spent his childhood, and the house where the Dursley Muggles lived still. Draco wanted to be sick at the sterile look of it, but then reminded himself Harry lived here no longer, and Dogfoot hadn't even been able to find a psychic trace of him. This was about the child Harry had been, but Draco didn't have to vomit. He had to think, and plan a careful justice equal to their crimes.

Casting a Disillusionment Charm on himself, he walked around the house. The flowerbeds were neatly taken care of, and all the curtains drawn. Draco saw a light shining from the center of the house, however, and cast a spell that would move the curtain aside enough to let him peer in.

In front of a box blaring with light sat all three Dursleys. It must have been a holiday for the two fat ones, Draco thought. The son sat squashed between his parents, eating what looked like an enormous sandwich dripping with juices. He laughed at something on the Muggle device, and bits of food flew from his mouth.

Draco sneered softly. That would be Harry's cousin, Dudley. And all three of them looked as if they hadn't a care in the world, rather than as if they carried the memory of a small, abused child about with them.

Draco tried to restrain the anger that climbed his throat, reminding himself that he had no idea how bad it had _truly_ been. Harry had almost certainly tried to soften the neglect, but that didn't mean his relatives had truly beaten him.

The amount of uncertainty only encouraged the rage, though, Draco found. As long as he had no limits, his imagination was free to conjure any images it liked, and Draco could see Harry sitting on the floor of a cupboard, trying not to cry, with disturbing clarity.

_Careful, careful, _he reminded himself. _You aren't here to destroy them- yet. Just to scare them, to warn them of what's coming._

He pointed his wand at himself and whispered a glamour, drawing the cowl of his cloak around his head as he did so. Glamours were easier when they had something to work with, especially physical materials that resembled what they were supposed to mimic. Draco concentrated on his own memories of what he wanted to appear as, and smiled in approval as his vision fogged and an intense chill radiated out from him.

When the Muggles looked through the window, he knew, they would see what looked like a Dementor there.

He raised one hand and scratched on the glass. The sound took long moments to penetrate the fat Muggles' trance, but at last Dudley turned around. Draco breathed out a cloud of breath, which turned the glass pane to frost.

The boy _shrieked_, which got the parents' attention. Harry's uncle leaped to his feet, backing away from the window. The aunt was screaming a variety of words, among which Draco could make out, "It's _them_, Vernon, _them!_ The _freaks!_"

Dudley had fallen to the floor in a dead faint. Draco raised an eyebrow, wondering if he'd somehow encountered Dementors before.

It wasn't his concern, however. He knew the parents would tell their son everything about what had happened when he woke. He lifted his wand, which would look like a long, pale finger to the terrified people watching him, and scribed bone-white letters on the pane.

_You will pay._

Then he Apparated, taking a vicious satisfaction in the wails that accompanied him.

_It's not nearly enough. But it's a start._


	38. Words of Wisdom Draco Does Not Listen To

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_Chapter 38- Words of Wisdom Draco Does Not Listen To_

"Hello, Mother." Draco had long since pulled off the sable cloak when he arrived at his mother's door. Narcissa didn't like seeing him in black. She claimed it made him look too pale, but Draco suspected that bad memories of her husband in the dark Death Eater cloak troubled her more than his coloring did.

He was in exactly the right mood to visit her, he thought- pleased with himself. He could listen to the inanities she spouted at him with more equanimity than he usually did. He did not think he would be caught.

Oh, the Ministry might sense the use of magic in a Muggle neighborhood, and arrive to investigate. But even if they listened to the Dursleys' rather confused ramblings, they would dismiss them, because Muggles couldn't _see_ Dementors. It would come to seem like a prank, not the deadly dangerous situation that a Dementor's escape from Azkaban would be viewed as.

Although, of course, the aunt had acted as if she might know what Dementors were...But if that was the case, it only added to Draco's enjoyment. She would tell her family, and they would cower in anticipation of the next time he arrived. And, the next time, they would have far more than frosty breath and words on a windowpane to fear.

The entrance hall of the house he'd prepared for Narcissa was smaller than the Manor's, but still fair enough, and decorated in the marble that Draco knew his mother preferred. He handed his appropriately pale blue cloak to the house-elf, Breezy, who attended Narcissa here, and kissed his mother's cheek.

"How have you been keeping?" he asked her.

"Not well enough," she said, and her hands clasped in front of her, fingers entwining, as she looked him over carefully. "I have received owls from Gardenia Parkinson and Genevieve Crabbe, among others, asking why my son is dating the Boy-Who-Lived, and causing disturbances doing it."

Draco concealed his smile. Pansy's mother had already known about Harry, of course, since they'd attended her concert together. The fact that she hadn't mentioned this to Narcissa showed she'd chosen his side over his mother's. Draco felt calm and content. Narcissa might be able to use her influence to shut most social circles against them, but the Parkinson house would never be closed to him and Harry.

"The disturbance in the Half-Globe wasn't Harry's fault," he said, with a slight shrug. "He stopped a rather contemptible wizard from raping a young witch, and the magic that hit him stripped his glamour off. He still came back with me from the Ministry."

"The Ministry has been in contact with me, as well." Narcissa's eyes were hard when she pulled a parchment from her robe pocket and held it out so that Draco could see the official seal. "They wanted to know if I knew that my son had kidnapped their prize Auror from under Madam Bones's nose." She moved a step forward and stared at him. "I was barely able to prevent them from sending someone to the house, Draco. I do _not_ enjoy being interrogated because of my son's mistakes."

"I understand," Draco said. "And it's unlikely to happen again, I promise you. Harry has refused the Ministry on his own."

"Our name is still tainted, still associated with kidnappers and unrest." Narcissa's eyes shone with a fervor Draco hadn't seen in years, and which he had to admit made him a little uneasy. "I worked too hard to drag the syllables of Malfoy back out of the mud, Draco, to secure a future for my son with the people who matter, and I will _not_ see you pull us back down for a fling. Is that _understood_?"

Draco regarded her for a moment in silence. It was true that Narcissa had worked tirelessly after the war, and particularly Lucius's death, to insure that they were not rejected out of hand. Not even her own false arrest- from which, ironically, Harry's money had been employed to free her, as Draco had found out- had stopped her. She had calmed down once it seemed that Draco would be able to give her the pure-blood daughter-in-law and grandchildren she had always wanted, but that didn't mean she couldn't bring back that indomitable will.

"I told you," he said, a bit more forcefully. "Harry refused them. And they didn't sack him for it. He's too good, they need him too much. Of course attention will come our way from my dating him, Mother, but haven't you considered that it could be _good_ attention, too? There are some people for whom the Boy-Who-Lived still has a high reputation, and others who do not forget their debts."

So far as Draco was concerned- well, had become concerned in the last two years, because before that he hadn't given a damn- the wizarding world should have paid far more in gratitude to Harry than it had. He'd thought at first that he could convince Harry to pursue that debt and demand what they owed him, but now, he doubted it would work. He would have a hard enough time getting Harry to agree to his revenge on the Dursleys.

"I do not want you dating a man, Draco," Narcissa said.

That was the first time she had ever said anything like that. Draco felt his eyes narrow, and his hand brushed the sleeve that hid his wand, even though it had been months since he feared he'd have to use magic against his mother. He _did_ still love her, he reminded himself as they locked gazes. It was just hard to remember sometimes.

"You never objected," he said.

"I knew it was an indulgence you would grow past." Narcissa's voice was glacial. "Someday, you would bring home a woman, marry her, and produce heirs to our legacy. I was willing to watch you flirt and sleep with other men in the meantime. But now you propose to yoke us to an utterly unsuitable partner, and one, moreover, who cannot give you children. I will not have it."

Draco waited. He could not simply charge at her, of course, by reminding her that she had no control over the Malfoy properties and monies, and less over him. She must have some basis of confidence in challenging him now, this way, or she would not have done it. So it would work best if he looked willing to attempt a reconciliation, up until the point when he found out what her weapon was.

On the other hand, giving in too suddenly wouldn't get her to believe him either. She knew how stubborn he was, none better.

"I must admit," he said, softening his posture enough to make it seem as if her words had struck home, "I hadn't thought that you would raise that objection now, Mother. When you talked about grandchildren and the sound of laughter in the house again, I thought you were lonely, that more house-elves or a pet or a paid companion would have served just as well."

Narcissa gave him a smile like a shard of winter sunlight, and folded the letter from the Ministry again. "I am quite serious, Draco," she said. "My enjoyment in the Malfoy legacies has been- spoilt, for reasons you know intimately. But that does not mean I cannot work to perfect them for others. If you are the only one to enjoy them, however, my pleasure declines. They should be there for your children, and for your wife. But not for Harry Potter. He has done less than anyone in the world to deserve to share in them."

Draco held his tongue, though he would have dearly liked to tell her that Harry wanted no share of money or property, had in fact willingly stripped himself of both, to the point where his charitable foundation had saved _her_ freedom. But she wouldn't listen to him. She _did_ love him, yes, but in her own way, and it was tied up with the often uncomfortable legacy he'd inherited.

"You don't want to see the line end with me," he said, and managed to make his tone objective, if not compliant.

Narcissa nodded, and he knew by the slight tightening of her lips that she was pleased. "_Yes_, Draco. Now you begin to understand. You are my son, and I am proud of you, and I love you. But there should be more Malfoys beyond you. The great lines do not exist only to end."

Draco had never seen the chasm between them so clearly before. If someone else asked, he would have said that he and Narcissa were both still part of the same world; Draco had just grown up with slightly different renditions of the same values, changed further by the war. He was not going to obey her, but he could treat her with respect because he believed in the same things.

Now, he saw that he did not. It was just as shocking a revelation as the one he'd had ten years ago, when he decided that perhaps Mudbloods were not so bad after all- far better than the man who had threatened to kill his parents if he didn't accomplish an impossible task, at least.

But Narcissa still cared about the continuation of the bloodline, and Draco did not. If Harry had been a woman, he would have had children with her because it would probably have happened that way. But Harry wasn't, and the fact that they couldn't have their own children truly didn't matter to Draco. If he ever longed for the company of a larger family, he would persuade Harry to adopt.

That the other people in his house shared his blood and his values no longer mattered to him.

He gave a slight shake of his head, then met Narcissa's eyes and said, "Well, Mother, you've made yourself clear. And you've raised a number of points I hadn't thought of before." _If only because I thought I agreed with you on them. _"But I can't get rid of Harry just like that, you know. I do think I owe him the duty of the healing I promised him, and he- well, I still favor him." He made himself redden and glance away, as though embarrassed of how much he wanted Harry in his bed.

Narcissa came a step forward and laid a hand like a falling white rose petal on his arm. "I understand, son," she said, and her voice was warm again. "_Noblesse oblige._ Do what you must to fulfill your duty towards him, and then make it clear as gently as you can that he is no longer welcome in the Manor. It is time for you to begin looking for a proper wife. I have a few candidates you may be interested in."

_Not on your life._ Draco simply nodded. "Thank you, Mother."

They spent a few more minutes together, talking. Narcissa was happy now that she thought she had what she wanted, and content to wait until he recalled her to the Manor. A faint flush of life and health had returned to her cheeks.

Draco was determined that someday he would see her both that beautiful and content to share a home with Harry.

It would take time. Harry would want to remove himself from the picture at once if he thought he was interfering between Draco and his mother. But Draco had managed more delicate things before, such as his acquittal by the Wizengamot. He had achieved the impossible. He would achieve this.

There was nothing he had ever wanted half so much.

* * *

"Mr. Malfoy. Can I speak with you a moment?"

Draco turned, eyebrows climbing. He'd come back home to find the therapy session already done with, and Trippy had told him Harry was asleep in his own rooms. He hadn't expected Theresa to remain, but of course she might have, and Trippy wouldn't have mentioned it because Draco hadn't specifically asked her about the Healer.

"Yes?" he asked, when Theresa went on staring at him expectantly.

Abruptly, the Healer sighed and passed a hand over her eyes. Draco narrowed his. "Has Harry been difficult again?"

"Not- in the sense of the words you mean," Theresa murmured, lowering her hand. "I cannot discuss what I mean in complete clarity, Mr. Malfoy, because I think what Harry said to me today should remain private. But I can say that you should be as honest with him as possible."

"Of course I am," Draco said, his puzzlement increasing. What in the world had Harry _said_, to make Theresa look like that? Had he gone back on trusting Draco? Had the bonds that connected him and Harry faded back to green or some lesser color? "I tell him the truth about everything I can. Of course, sometimes I keep things secret because I know that he won't want them yet, even though he needs them." _Like revenge._

Theresa gave him a nod as slow as treacle. "Well. That might do. He did say that he trusted you, sometimes, to know what's good for him, better than he does."

Draco beamed. "Of course he should." _He needs to put his past with the Dursleys behind him. It's like his friends' deaths. He's shut the book but not put it down. I'll open it, show him the pages hold nothing to be fearful of, and then escort him away and into our new life together._

"He is bonding to you, Mr. Malfoy." Theresa's reluctance had cleared from her eyes; she seemed determined to make him understand now. "But you know how much pain he has endured in his life because of close emotional ties, and how easy it would be for him to cut them again. Give him no reason to do that. If, in the end, you choose your family over him, or another lover, have the kindness to tell him so."

"No one matters more to me than he does." Draco held her eyes so she couldn't look away, a trick Narcissa had taught him. "I promise, Theresa. He's mine because I can give him what he needs. I would never claim him if I doubted my ability to provide for him."

The thought of what he would do if Harry left filled him with a roaring fire. He didn't _want_ Harry to leave. Harry had no _place_ leaving. A temporary separation was all well and good, of course, but not a permanent one. They needed to be together. Harry would make other friends, other acquaintances at work, and social enemies, but they should be the most important people in each other's lives.

Draco did not want to settle for less if he loved Harry.

And he was- well, _virtually_ certain he did.

Oblivious to his emotional revelations, Theresa bowed and took her leave. Draco pursued his way to Harry's rooms, hoping that he would be awake.

He was, but when he opened the door, Draco saw that Harry wasn't in the mood to listen to a confession right now. His green eyes were very direct, and he spoke words Draco hadn't expected to hear out of him for months, if ever.

"I want to hear what happened to you during the war."


	39. What He Did During The War

_Chapter 39- What He Did During the War_

Harry knew his request had surprised Draco, but he truly hadn't known any other way to make it. How did one _soften_ something like that? He'd thought for an hour, and still not managed to do it, so in the end, he'd decided honesty was preferable to Draco misunderstanding him or managing to deflect the subject.

Now, luckily, whether it was due to Harry's bluntness or something else, Draco didn't seem as if he were going to avoid it. He nodded, and stepped into the room, shutting the door behind him. "I think it would be best if we were _alone_ for this," he said.

The tone of his voice made Harry think that Theresa had remained in the Manor, though he had no idea why she would. He forgot about it when Draco sat in a chair in the corner, though, leaving him the bed. Harry sat down and crumpled the blanket between his fingers. He had a lot of practice at that. He'd been doing it for the last hour.

He knew what he heard might be difficult or painful- for himself as well as for Draco. But, well, he had to know that he could trust Draco even with the difficult or painful things. Perhaps especially with those, since the rest of his healing would hardly take place overnight.

"I fled from Hogwarts with Severus," Draco said. Harry felt his face move into a grimace of its own accord, and Draco's voice sharpened. "He was _good_ to me, Harry, you don't understand. He did what he had to do to keep me safe. He'd sworn an Unbreakable Vow to my mother that he would, but really, I think he would have done it without that. He was- fond of me."

Harry waited for Draco to elaborate on that, but he didn't, so Harry nodded. He even thought he understood now, which he certainly wouldn't have when he was sixteen, the way that Snape might have been fond of Draco. Draco had done well in Potions, and probably not _all_ of it was due to the professor's favoritism. And Draco had been part of his House, of course, and able to maintain a demeanor that was a lot like a younger Snape-in-training.

"So he took me to the Dark Lord," Draco said, and swallowed nervously. "It- there aren't words for what he was like, Harry."

"I know," Harry said shortly.

Draco's face softened, and he reached across the bed. To Harry's surprise, though, he didn't take his hands, but pulled back the fringe from Harry's forehead to reveal the lightning bolt scar, and gently traced it with a fingertip.

"Of course you would," he breathed.

Harry fought not to shrug the hands off, and waited patiently for the rest of the story. Draco seemed to recall, after a moment, that he wanted to hear it, and his eyes darkened, his hands falling away from Harry's face.

"Severus lied for me," he said. "I knew he was an Occlumens, but the sheer _power_ of the story he told, blending the fact that Dumbledore had fallen with what it would mean for the Dark Lord's future power and what help I'd managed to give the Death Eaters- he walked a line I don't think will ever be walked again. He lied and told the truth and exaggerated all at once, and made the Dark Lord so happy that he forgot about most of the punishment he was going to assign to me. Not all of it, of course." Draco drew in a shivering breath of fear. "He subjected me to the Cruciatus three times before Snape took me out of there." Draco's smile didn't reach his eyes. "My 'lying low' during June and most of July was just trying to recuperate from the curse."

"I understand," Harry murmured, mind full of memories of a graveyard and a knife slicing into his arm, followed by a pain curse that he could still feel the echoes of if he tried.

"Once I was back on my feet," Draco continued, "I wanted to help Snape with what he was doing. I'm still not sure if he did what he did then out of concern for my tender young soul and what remained of my innocence, or the Unbreakable Vow, or because he was afraid I would find out he was working for your side. He sat down and laid out my incompetence in plain and simple terms. What I'd succeeded in doing was solving a difficult logistics problem, how to get the Death Eaters into Hogwarts. I was not, and never would be, a killer."

Harry gave a brief nod, forcing his neck to move even when it wanted to remain stiff. He forced himself not to see the scars on Bill's face, or the expression on Dumbledore's face as he'd fallen from the Tower. He knew, now, that Dumbledore had been dying long before he fell.

And as for Bill-

Well, he'd died a few months later.

"So I couldn't help him," Draco concluded with a gusty sigh. "I raged at him. Had a regular _fit_. He wouldn't yield." Draco's face suddenly turned red, and his voice dipped. Harry leaned forward for a hint of what was coming next. "When he, um, when he got tired of me, he tied me up and left me to dangle from the ceiling of his house."

Harry stared at him for a time. Finally he said, "And how long did he leave you hanging there?"

"Until I passed out from the blood rushing to my head," Draco muttered, his ears turning red in turn.

Harry couldn't help it; he snickered.

"It really wasn't funny," Draco said, a trace of a whinge in his voice. "It bloody _hurt._ But after that, I listened to him, and he let me down. I spent most of the rest of the war brewing healing potions. I never knew which side they went to help. Smug bastard still won't tell me. What?" he added at Harry's raised eyebrows. "Severus _is_ a smug bastard. I never disagreed with that part of what you felt for him, you know."

"Most of the rest of the war, you said," Harry murmured, latching on to the nuances of the words as he'd learned to do during Auror training. "What about the small part of it you didn't?"

Draco stared at his hands.

"Draco?" Harry reached out and squeezed one of those hands, waiting in patient silence until Draco looked back up at him again. Then Draco leaned across the space between them and kissed him, slowly and thoroughly and in search of comfort. Harry accepted it, even tilted his head so that his mouth could welcome Draco's tongue.

Draco drew away. "I wanted one last chance at glory. And to save my parents. I didn't know what was happening to my mother throughout most of the war- it turned out that she'd been in the Dark Lord's dungeons, and he was just looking for any excuse to torture her, when he wasn't using her social contacts to his advantage- but I knew he'd left my father in Azkaban. Idiot that I was, I thought I could still manage to impress him enough to spare Lucius.

"I went through a great deal of trouble and effort to spy on one of Severus's meetings with my aunt Bellatrix, and I learned they expected an Order of the Phoenix attack on one of the buildings the Dark Lord had recently captured. It happened to be in an area near Diagon Alley I knew, because I'd gone there shopping with my mother. I planned to Apparate in before the attack began, hide, and then- I don't know. Kill you, I think, if you were there. Since there were rumors of you flying everywhere, I thought you were as likely to be there as elsewhere."

Harry nodded. If his sense of Draco's timeline was right, the attack would have happened somewhere in late August or early September. He had still been hunting the Horcruxes then, and since he hadn't shared more than the most basic information with anyone else, no one had been able to track the rumors of his appearance with any regularity, or know which were truth and which desperation.

"I wasn't thinking." Draco gave an unhappy laugh. "Describes most of what I did that year, really. I Apparated in early, and found a doorway to ambush the attackers from, and settled down to wait. I can only remember feeling excited, which shows you what an imbecile I was.

"Then cloaked wizards and witches appeared and attacked, shouting, and Death Eaters appeared in defense. I drew my wand and sprinted out into the middle of them. I cast a Stunning Charm. I downed someone- I never knew who. I hadn't known battle was that _confusing._ My clearest memory of the battle at Hogwarts is the Tower, you know. Everything else pales after that.

"And then I felt this stunning blast of _pain_ go through me, and my left arm went numb, and I dropped. Half the people in sight were screaming. I looked up through watering eyes, and the sun was coming down, and I remember thinking that that was the last sunset I was ever going to see." Draco gave a smile as thin as the edge of a knife-blade. "I was, well, surprised to wake up and find out I was in Azkaban.

"I'd chosen a bloody idiotic time to get myself involved in an attack. That was the last skirmish of the war. You defeated Voldemort then, Harry, and the Aurors caught me with a wand in my hand."

Harry swallowed. It felt strange to realize that, during the moments when the Aurors were probably collecting Draco and carting him off to Azkaban, he had been burning his Invisibility Cloak, staring into the flames, wishing he could find a place in the Muggle world where people had never heard of him but it was still possible for him to use magic.

He'd overcome that momentary madness, of course, and the very dark three heartbeats that had followed it, when he had wished for nothing more in the world than to die, and the obsidian heartbeat that followed that, when he'd lifted his wand to cast the Killing Curse on himself. He'd remembered how he felt when he killed Voldemort. There might be a use for a gray passion like that in the wizarding world, he thought, and so he'd decided to become an Auror and bring Dark wizards to justice. But he'd known how it felt to have death pass him by so close he could feel its breath on the back of his neck.

_Was that how Draco felt, staring up at the sun?_

"That was what your trial was based on, wasn't it?" he asked quietly. "That final battle?"

Draco gave him a shallow nod. If he'd noticed Harry's detour into his own memories, he was good enough not to comment on it. "Yes. That, and letting the Death Eaters into Hogwarts, and some exaggerated rumors that claimed I'd been the one to kill Dumbledore and not Severus. Of course, once Severus came forward and proved he'd been working for the Order of the Phoenix all along, that was enough to clear me."

He took a deep breath and flexed his fingers. "So there you have it, Potter." He strove for nonchalance in his tone, but Harry didn't believe it. "The harrowing tale of my woes and worries during the Second War with You-Know-Who. I'm sure it doesn't compare to what you endured, but- "

And Harry was suddenly, savagely, murderously angry.

"Don't _say_ that," he snapped.

Draco stared at him for a moment. "What?" he said, finally, as though he didn't understand English.

"You endured _enough_," said Harry. "You were in Azkaban, for God's sake. You were under the stress of thinking your parents were going to die any moment for more than a year. You were assigned two impossible things, and you did one of them." He stepped over the remembrance of what those impossible things had meant for him, personally. "No, you didn't have the quest I did, but that doesn't make what you suffered _little_, Draco. It never can."

There was a look in Draco's eyes that Harry didn't properly understand, or maybe was too upset to understand. "I was essentially a failure, Harry," he murmured. "No need to downplay that. Didn't do one thing, didn't do the other, was caught in the stupidest action of my life at the very worst moment I could have been. Maybe it's good that I never became a killer, but at least, if I'd been a killer, I would have been _something_, instead of a squirming bit of nothing." His voice showed how old and deep this bitterness ran. _Eleven years' worth of it._

"You would be less than you are." Harry crossed the distance between them, and gripped Draco's shoulders, shaking him. He didn't feel tender enough to manage an embrace at the moment. He felt dry-eyed and fierce. "And look at you now. You survived- all that. You became someone who could decide to heal a man you'd disliked fervently for six years, and all because you thought I needed it, that I deserved it. Draco- " He bit his tongue before the words inside his mouth could tumble over it, and then decided that he was a Gryffindor and didn't need _caution._ "Do you know how few people in the world would have done that for me? _No one_ else did that for me once my friends died. You _matter_. I'm thankful that you survived the war the way you did, since it helped turn you into the person you are now."

Draco was staring at him with wide gray eyes, still crowded with that unfamiliar emotion. "Harry," he murmured.

"No. You're going to _listen_ to me, damn it." Harry gave him another shake. He felt as if he were trying to reassure Ron he was good enough to outshine the rest of his family, or Hermione after she received a failing mark on an exam. But more than all that, because-

He refused to examine the "because." It was hard enough to find the words.

"I like the person you are," he told Draco. "I _really_ like him. He's good enough for anything that matters. He's done good things. He could do great things if he wanted." He shook his head and abandoned the third person. "You could do great things if you wanted. Just because you haven't done them so far doesn't mean you can't. And I'm glad you couldn't kill. There's nothing special about being able to kill. It just means that you had to give up part of your soul, and I wish it had never happened to me.

"No more of this nonsense about not being special enough or smart enough, all right? I know it's rare for you, but that doesn't make it any easier to listen to. You're _Draco Malfoy_. You don't need anyone's pity, do you? And that includes self-pity. _Doesn't_ it?"

Draco murmured something Harry couldn't make out. Harry shook him hard enough to rattle the teeth in his soul.

"Yes," Draco said, loud enough to hear now.

Harry gave him a kiss without tongue, but with rather a lot of tooth behind the lip. "Good," he said. "Good. And if, someday, you do think about taking another lover, don't take one who won't say the same things to you- "

Draco seized control of the kiss, and bore him backwards onto the bed. His breath gusted over Harry's earlobe in hot waves as he whispered, setting up a dense wave of shivers in Harry's body. "You think I'm ever going to let you go? You're mad, Harry. I'm _never_ letting you walk away from me."

And then he was trying to roll Harry over so that he was in a position for taking his robes off.

Harry resisted. He shared the same feeling that had come upon Draco- a surge of leonine ferocity- but he wasn't going to be a passive victim, or someone who only provisionally accepted what happened between them. This time, he would be in control, fully committed.

_I suppose this is the part where I really admit I'm gay._

Gladly, he went to meet the challenge.


	40. With His Whole Heart

_Chapter 40- With His Whole Heart_

Draco grunted with surprise as his back hit the bed. He'd thought he was going to pin Harry easily, given how unexpected his kiss was, but he had to give up that idea as Harry straddled his waist and stared down at him for a moment. His eyes felt like hammers.

Which was rather appropriate, actually, given the effect his words had had on Draco. Draco found himself arching his back, willing Harry to get on with things. If Harry just sat there and stared and didn't move, Draco would take over and fuck him well enough to make Harry addicted to it.

But Harry seemed to have taken the time to make a final decision rather than hesitate, because the next moment he learned down and cupped Draco's jaw in both hands, holding him still as he pried open his mouth with his tongue.

Draco gave, but not too easily. He was not yielding. He was anything but gentle. And he wanted to savor what started to build between them now: a long, intense burning, unlike the lively flames of the first time they'd had sex, but still enough to make him harden.

That Harry had _said_ those things to him-

He'd banished the guilt haunting Draco's mind as none of Draco's own advice and reassurances, or those of the Healers he sought out, had ever managed to do. Draco couldn't get close enough to Harry to answer that. Harry would have to fuck him just the right way to get close enough himself.

At least he appeared to know that, from the way he kissed. Draco had never known Harry like this: his hands holding Draco's face with a tightness just on the edge of pain, making his jaw ache the way it did when he'd been sucking someone off for more than five minutes. His tongue moved as though heedless of the existence of Draco's, pressing it flat against his teeth, probing and twisting and _jabbing_.

Draco growled low in his throat. "Yes," he said, when Harry had to pull away because they both gasped like divers coming up from underwater. "This is what I _want_." He lifted his hips and slammed them against Harry's, winning a ragged groan from him. "Fuck me, Harry, or I swear to God I'll hold you down and make tears run from your eyes with what I do to you."

Harry's eyes were clearer than Draco had ever seen them, more _present_, focused on him. Some final barrier had fallen between them. Draco wasn't sure why- it could have been the fact that he'd exposed a weakness to Harry, where, before, he'd been careful to show him strength that Harry could lean on- but he saw the Auror now, the man who'd existed before only in those brief moments when he actually caught criminals.

"You don't have to worry about getting _fucked_," Harry said, and leaned over to slide his tongue down Draco's ear. "About visiting your mother without blushing in embarrassment, maybe, but not about that."

Draco shivered a bit. But anyone could say words like that. It was time to see if Harry meant them.

"Really?" he asked, and shoved upward with all his strength, trying to roll Harry over and put him on his back.

* * *

Harry was responding before he thought, Auror training combining with his instincts. He slammed his hands onto Draco's shoulders and pushed back, refusing to let Draco use his momentum to good advantage. His arms ached with the pressure, but he didn't _care_. He was doing this. This was his test. It was one thing to lie back and let Draco do all the work; he could still pretend to himself that he wasn't gay if he did that, just enjoying a new experience. It was another thing to initiate sex himself. And he was going to _do_ that, and he was going to _prove_ what he was, and that sex with Draco wasn't something he found boring or trivial.

Draco hissed as Harry pushed him down again. Harry smiled at him, once, and then tilted his head back, applying his tongue to the pulse point in Draco's throat. It had occurred to him that if Draco were too busy moaning to move, they wouldn't have this struggle.

The taste of salt and sweat and skin seemed much stronger in his mouth than it did during even his abortive attempt to suck Draco off a few days ago. Draco tensed up at once, and his heart beat so fast Harry was briefly concerned.

Then he told himself not to worry, that Draco would tell him if something hurt beyond endurance. Theresa wanted him to work on building trust with Draco. While he doubted she'd had _quite_ this in mind, it was still a way. He dragged his tongue from Draco's throat to the beginning of his robes, and then paused, focusing all of his accidental magic into a single fierce point, like a beam of sunlight pointed through a prism of glass.

Draco gave a shout as his clothes vanished. Harry, in turn, gave a little snarl of victory. It wasn't often that he'd managed to do something that precise and finely tuned. Shaking furniture and portraits on the walls was hardly a matter of _finesse._

He sat back and did it again, banishing his robes. He didn't greatly care if they turned up or not. Both he and Draco had other clothes.

Draco lay on the bed, staring up at him with a slightly dazed expression. Harry didn't know if it came from surprise or awe at his power. He had more important things to think about, like biting Draco's nipples and then snaking a hand down his body to grasp his cock.

As if two sensations at once were his undoing, Draco convulsed and lost the ability to talk. Harry could make out his own name in Draco's broken sobs, and now and then what sounded like the start of an instruction, but he didn't want to listen to instructions. He knew what to do, now that Draco had fucked him once. He would do this _his_ way.

"I want to know where you put the oil that you used on me the other day," he said, proud of how calm his voice was.

Draco glared at him through hazed eyes. "You're _enjoying_ this," he said. "Bastard."

"Oh, come on, Draco," Harry said, and made the twisting, pinching motion with one hand that Draco used when he wanked. "You can't tell me that you're not enjoying it, too."

"Didn't mean- "

"I don't care," Harry said. His voice had gone lower than usual, which wasn't something he had experience of. For a moment, he was inclined to worry. _Who am I and what have I done with Harry Potter?_

And then the inclination blew away, as Draco jerked his head towards the table beside the bed. Harry leaned smoothly but quickly back, opened the drawer, and Summoned the oil. If he left it too long, Draco might find the strength to sit up and be a nuisance again.

He didn't want that. Quite apart from wanting to demonstrate his commitment to this, Harry had an erection of his own now that treated every rub against the fabric as an invitation to pleasure. He wanted to actually be having sex with Draco when he came, not humping the bed like an idiot.

But Draco lay there, watching him with eyes that had gone dark and critical, as if he would evaluate Harry's performance and score him on it when he was done. Harry wondered what he could do to counteract that impulse.

_Ah_.

"You matter," he told Draco, rubbing a little of the oil around his left index finger. "And I'm going to fuck you like you matter. Has that ever happened before?"

Draco blinked, several times. Then he said, "Honestly, Harry, you say the most perverse things during sex."

"And, once again, I choose to take that as a compliment," Harry said, and circled one finger down Draco's erection, behind it, and then around the ring of muscle he would need to ease and loosen, watching Draco's face narrowly all the while. Critical looks were one thing, and to be banished. An honest expression of pain was another.

* * *

Draco convinced himself he needed to spread his legs a bit more, and tried his best to control his mounting excitement. Harry didn't seem as naturally inclined to sex talk as Draco was, but when he tried-

_Well. His own brand of it is interesting enough._

Strange, how the voice of his own thoughts could sound so cool while his heart labored and his mouth went dry, and he grunted a little with the push of Harry's finger into his body. Harry had used enough oil that Draco felt, if not comfortable, at least all right, and nodded to Harry when he'd been stroking in and out for a while. Harry added a second finger.

His eyes wouldn't miss a flinch, Draco knew, and so he fought to maintain his unconcerned expression. And, in fact, after a few minutes, the pain passed enough that he could raise an eyebrow and ask, "Is that the best you can do?"

Harry's response was to hook and curl his fingers upwards, obviously searching for Draco's prostate.

He found it at once, which wasn't _fair._ Draco twitched for a long moment, and forced out, "Beginner's luck."

Harry gave a low, hungry laugh in response which stole most of the irritation from Draco and replaced it with a simmering fire. God, if he could fuck like he laughed...

He really did have to stop thinking things like this, Draco thought. The amount of liquid leaking down his erection was absolutely embarrassing.

"Whatever you say, Malfoy." Harry gave him another lick on the throat, rather like a lion testing the jugular before it bit, and then slid closer. A third finger joined the other two while Draco was reflecting on the fact that a tongue on his skin just _there_ could make him so willing to spread his legs and offer his arse to Harry. He'd never considered his throat a particularly intimate or sensitive spot.

His body begged to differ with him now. Perhaps it had to do with Harry's technique-

Or perhaps it just had to do with Harry.

"Enough," he said.

Harry raised an eyebrow at him. "I haven't spent as long preparing you as you did preparing me."

_And still he doesn't groan, or moan, or pant. I'll change that. _Draco managed a smirk. "Yes, and I've done this before, Harry, which you hadn't. I'm not nearly as fragile."

"Fragile," Harry repeated, eyes darkening, and then he pulled his fingers out with a jerk, bent down, and gathered Draco's legs, lifting them easily until they rested on his shoulders. "Let's see whether you'll repeat that when I'm inside you. Not that I think you'll have the brains left to do so."

Draco gritted his teeth as Harry began to slide in. It did hurt, the way it always did.

But over and around and above the pain echoed the greedy voice of his lust. _Yes. I want this._

* * *

Harry had never known that mere bodily sensations could come so near to shattering him. God knew he'd learned to ignore most of them while he worked, from hunger to the pain of a sprained ankle. There was always the chance to relax later, when he returned to his flat or the Ministry. He hadn't believed, before he came to Malfoy Manor, that _pleasure_ could distract him.

But this did. Oh, it _did._ Harry flung his head back, panting. He didn't know how Draco had kept from pushing forward or coming at once when he was inside _him_. His muscles flexed on the edge of control.

_Yes, you know how he did it. He was concerned about hurting you, and he likes you. That's the least you can think about with Draco._

Harry shook the sweat and the damp hair out of his eyes, and looked at Draco. "Feeling fragile yet, Malfoy?" he asked. The sentence came out with only one gasp in the middle and a near-stammer that never managed to manifest. Harry congratulated himself.

"You haven't proven yourself yet, Potter." Draco had his head tilted against the pillows, and that critical look back in his darkened gray eyes. "Remember how much you complained and wriggled about when I fucked you? I have the same right if your performance isn't up to standard."

Harry raised an eyebrow and thrust forward.

_First try_, he thought smugly as Draco gave a cry like a wounded animal, and that helped him to ignore the rippling sensation of utter pleasure that traveled through him. He would not come yet. He was focused on making Draco come first, and, in fact, enjoy this so much that he never thought about taking another lover.

_Never. I'll be his last._

And Harry threw his heart and back into it, and fucked the way he flew, or dueled. Nothing less than his whole heart, his full effort, could go into this, so _everything_ did. Heave, and push, and heave, and push, and _God_, Draco was squirming under him and uttering cries on the edge of helplessness, and Harry _loved_ it.

Out went his hand and closed around Draco's cock, stroking it. He didn't find it hard to do both things at once, any more than he found it hard to fly and catch the Snitch at the same time. He didn't bother with more than two full strokes before he pinched the head.

And then Draco was there, just _there_, and fire descended on Harry and whirled him out of his own body as he came. He was fairly sure that he shouted, or roared. Draco would probably make lion jokes later.

He didn't care. God, at the moment he cared about _nothing_ except the fact that he'd given himself over to this wholly, and yes, he was gay, and yes, he had pretty much handed himself to Draco Malfoy.

_If you're going to do something, do it right._


	41. Unexpected Visits

_Chapter 41- Unexpected Visits_

The wards warned Draco long before Narcissa entered the Manor, of course. He slowed on his broom and leaned down, narrowing his eyes.

The Snitch chose that moment to dart past him, beating its wings as if it sensed his distraction and couldn't _wait_ to escape him. Harry swooped after it, then wheeled around in a circle, shouting like a cuckoo.

"What are you waiting for, Draco, permission?" he called. When he opened his hand, the Snitch tried to dart away, but Harry caught it without even having to lean sideways. Draco experienced a brief moment of his old envy, but that was quickly overwhelmed by the fact that this magnificent, easily moving Harry was all his.

"My mother's here, Harry," he called.

Harry at once stiffened, then nodded and dived. "It's getting cloudy anyway," he called back. "We should land and greet her."

Draco gave the only clouds floating in one corner of the sky, like players too shy to come on stage, a dubious glance, but he knew why this visit mattered to Harry. Harry still hoped against hope that Narcissa would deign to accept his presence in her son's life. In vain, Draco had tried to reassure him that it didn't matter if Narcissa loved him, because _he_ loved Harry. Harry had muttered something about parents and how one never had enough chances to be with them, and Draco had let it go. The subject of James and Lily Potter was one he wasn't willing to broach, as yet.

He landed with a casual snap in front of Harry and slung the Flameflare over his shoulder. "We don't need to put them away," he added, as Harry headed for the shed to one side of the Pitch. "Why shouldn't we let her know she interrupted us?"

"She might accept that from you, Draco, but never from me."

Draco felt his face soften. It was incredible what Harry could do to make him melt into compassion, a feeling he had only ever experienced in small flashes before. His parents and his friends certainly hadn't demanded it of him. He rubbed Harry's shoulder. "All right," he said quietly. "Put the broom away. I'll go to meet her like this, and find out what she wants. I _certainly_ didn't invite her."

Harry smiled at him for a moment, then turned and trotted off. Draco made his way towards the garden's edge. He could think of a few reasons for Narcissa to appear today. None of them were pleasant.

* * *

"Draco." Narcissa wore white, as always, but her robes had a touch of unusual blue in them, as though she stood on marble under a very faint shadow, or inside a snowbank touched with sunlight. She reached out and grasped his hand firmly, her eyes shining. "I have changed my mind."

Draco stared at her. "Changed your mind?" he said, when he found his tongue. It had crawled to the bottom of his mouth in his astonishment.

Narcissa nodded serenely. "I don't think you will abandon Mr. Potter any longer," she said. The slight curl of her lip reassured Draco that not the _whole_ world had gone mad, and she still disliked Harry. "I do not wish to spend years fighting with my only child. You don't mean to give him up and take a wife, correct? Or even a female lover?" There was a touch of wistfulness in those last words, as if Narcissa would prefer illegitimate Malfoy children to no Malfoy children at all.

"Correct," Draco said, striving for the tone of coldness and hauteur that his father had used to cow other Death Eaters.

Perhaps Narcissa had heard it too often to show an effect, because she merely smiled again. "Then I must become reconciled to him," she said. Her words had a tone of quiet dignity in them now. "God knows what that insect Skeeter would say, if she discovered that Mrs. Malfoy could not get along peacefully with someone who is practically her son-in-law. I may not like him, Draco, but I have seen that expression on your face before. You're _set_, aren't you, and you will not change your mind?" She sighed. "I will have to learn to be around- dear Harry- and not flinch away from him as though he carried lice."

Draco studied her closely. It was a believable enough motive for Narcissa, all in all- she certainly hated appearing in the _Daily Prophet_ as anything but an exquisite society matron- but she had had years to become accustomed and reconciled to Draco's ways since the War, and she had never done so. She rather, Draco thought, enjoyed the fussing, because it meant he paid attention to her. He didn't think she'd changed now, and he wondered what game she played.

On the other hand, he intended to exile her from the Manor again once she and Harry had talked, and she couldn't influence Harry against him, or whatever she hoped to do, if she was at a distance.

Draco's resolve firmed as he remembered the way Harry had spoken to him about his own past, responded to a confession of weakness with a strength Draco could let himself lean on if he wanted to. _He said I mattered. No matter what she plans, Mother can't know about that. She can't know that Harry has that fierce a loyalty to the people he loves._

_At least, I think he loves me._

He had no time to stand around indulging his own weaknesses. Harry appeared then, his robes carefully charmed to remove any sweat that had accumulated on them during Quidditch. He gave Narcissa a nod and a small smile, which Draco's mother returned with a smile that he thought would have fit better in a shark's mouth.

And still she said nothing more insulting or worrying than, "I don't yet like you, Mr. Potter. I suppose I might come to, with time. For now, I think we should present a united front against the world, and assure the Ministry that Draco did nothing wrong in bringing you to the Manor." She put her hand out in front of her and held it as though she expected Harry to break her wrist. "Friends in the name of protecting Draco?"

Harry kissed her hand silently. Draco could see the shine in his eyes, and silently cursed. Misfortune or not, Harry was an optimist. He would want to believe that Narcissa could accept him, if not love him, and that would make him all the more likely to ignore the warning signs and look past problems.

"Mother," he said in a low voice, drawing both their attention as he curved an arm around Harry's shoulders. "Don't you think you've visited the Manor long enough for a first time?"

Narcissa only nodded, her manner now reflecting polite resignation to the fact that her only son was a boor. "Of course, Draco," she said. "I should be returning to London." And she turned and walked away towards the wards. Draco watched her hands intently, waiting for her to drop a spying device or a pellet enchanted to blow up on the ground. But her fingers never moved, and never went near her sleeves, where she often hid her wand.

Harry tugged his arm and said, "Draco," in a disapproving way.

Draco looked at him.

"Don't you think you should invite her to stay?" Harry asked in a low voice, gesturing after Narcissa. She had reached the beginning of the small strip of grass that marked the edge of the Manor and now lingered there, a sad and lovely vision- if you didn't look at the shark's teeth, Draco thought. "She came all the way from London to see us, and she _is_ making an attempt at reconciliation. That can't be easy, after everything I did to offend her."

Draco shook his head. "It's a trick," he said quietly. "She'll make us relax, and then strike."

"That's a terrible thing to say about your own mother, Draco." Harry reared back and frowned at him.

"It's _true._" Draco folded his arms. "And are you really more likely to trust her than me, Harry?"

Harry didn't back down or look away, as those words might have made him do only a short time ago. "It has nothing to do with trust, Draco, and everything to do with wanting you to have a full life," he said. "I might add to it, yes, but I don't want my presence to cost you anything except what you're willing to give up. And I don't want to see you using your protectiveness of me as an excuse to be stubborn, either," he added, in poisonous tones that would have done credit to Gardenia Parkinson.

Draco watched his mother. Narcissa had given up on being asked to stay, it seemed. Even as he watched, she moved beyond the wards, drew her wand with slow and obvious movements, and Apparated away.

Harry hissed in frustration. "And there goes your chance to ask her." He rocked back on his heels and studied Draco critically. Draco flushed as he had not when exposing his greatest weakness to Harry. This- this was different. This was something he was absolutely sure was true, but which Harry wasn't constitutionally prepared to accept, and which Draco had no proof of.

He reined in his rising temper. There was an easier way to control it than by shouting and starting an argument, and he intended to go and use that way to soothe it the moment he'd said a few things to Harry.

"I don't know if she's up to anything, Harry," he said. "But she always has been in the past. This exaggerated friendliness- she's subtler than that. It must cover some deeper game."

"Or maybe she's decided to be obvious and give you what you want for once in your life," Harry pointed out.

_That could be true. _But, regardless of the lack of evidence for anything sinister on Narcissa's part, Draco was not prepared to believe her. Every concession that Narcissa traded, she tried to exact a higher price for. There were a few times when Draco had pinned her and got a straight promise or plain truth from her. They weren't common.

"Please just be careful around her, Harry," he said. "If she asks you to meet privately, refuse it. If she talks to you, weigh her words. I'm not- I'm not asking you to _hate_ her. But keep in mind that, even if she means what she says about presenting a united front, that doesn't mean she wouldn't take the chance to abandon you." He hesitated, because Harry might resent the extreme comparison, but it was the only one that made sense. "The Dark wizards you catch can reform, but it's not very common, is it? And even if they do, you don't trust them simply because they say so."

Harry's eyes half-lidded, in that look Draco had seen before whenever he thought about the Ministry. At last, he gave a short nod.

"I don't think your mother's as bad as some of those I've caught, Draco," he said. "But I can see sense. I'll be careful around her."

Draco kissed him in sheer relief. Harry made a startled little noise, then laughed into his mouth and put his arms around him. Draco started to push him to the ground. He _hoped_, now, that Narcissa had left a spy, or had remained herself to observe them and look for weaknesses. He'd give Harry the fucking of his life in front of them.

Harry, being Harry and so often inconvenient to Malfoys, put a stop to it. "I have a session with Theresa in ten minutes, Draco," he said. "I doubt she'd like me to show up with grass stains on my clothes and a silly grin on my lips."

"But she wants you to be happy, doesn't she?" Draco asked, trying to tug Harry's robes back so that he could entrap his arms and hold him still. Harry _liked_ sex, as he'd proven again and again in the last few days. Wrestle him down, and Draco thought he could convince him to be late to the session with Theresa.

"She does," Harry said, "but she's not entirely happy that we're doing this, even now." He slipped away from Draco with a smooth Seeker's move, and touched his arm. "I'll see you later." His eyes held a meaning that Draco could interpret easily enough, even without words.

He nodded. "I won't watch."

Harry kissed him fiercely, though not nearly hard enough to satisfy Draco, and broke away, trotting towards the Manor. Draco stood where he was a moment, breathing, then made for his own bedroom. So long as he was quick and didn't take more time than Harry would use to meet with Theresa, he could practice the technique that calmed his temper.

And, not incidentally, advanced his plan of revenge for Harry.

* * *

Draco paused and looked around as he landed in front of the Dursleys' house. He had thought he heard another crack of Apparition behind him, but a few careful spells revealed no one watching. Besides, he couldn't see why another wizard would come to such a boring Muggle neighborhood. Dogfoot had had such trouble acquiring the information about Harry's relatives that Draco was sure no one else knew where they lived.

He cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself, and then tried the door. Locked. Draco snorted. Muggle locks were pitiful things against a spell. "_Alohomora!_" he whispered, and the door opened.

Draco stepped into the neat house and smiled at the photographs on the walls. All the Muggles appeared to be away, which pleased Draco. He _could_ have done what he planned with them in the house- and, in one respect, that would have been more fun- but this way, he could take his time and plant in them the creeping fear and uneasiness they should have suffered a long time ago, for what they did to Harry.

Carefully, using only his wand (he had heard that Muggle Aurors could track fingerprints), he moved the photographs sideways. Then he headed into the room occupied by their telly-vision and firmly levitated the device into the air, sticking it to the wall. The spell was designed to end the moment someone touched it. Draco gave a smile that, were it small and mean, no one else was around to see. He imagined Dudley injured by flying glass shards, and perhaps the smile grew smaller and meaner.

Into the kitchen, where he painted letters on the glasses and the cutlery and then rearranged them so that they spelled out a message greeting the Dursleys and telling them to beware of magic. The kitchen table received a splash of red in the middle that looked convincingly like blood. Draco amused himself by drawing the outline of a cat on the floor near each chair, as though someone had dropped three animals from the ceiling.

Unexpected things, strange things, _abnormal_ things. Draco intended to frighten them and confuse them, all the more because the evidence he left in the house didn't let the Dursleys know for certain what was happening. He wanted them milling in circles like the sheep they were.

He did pause by the cupboard under the stairs when he saw the door and kneel there in silence, his heart thudding in his ears. For the first time, the impulse to _destroy_ rose in him. He wanted to blast the door off, to clean any possible psychic residue of Harry's existence from it, to bring light flooding into the small, horrible dark space. He had to breathe deeply several times before the red haze faded from his eyes.

Draco contented himself with scribing nonsense letters into the door of the cupboard. An HP and a DM were scattered among them, but in no precise configuration. Let the Dursleys drive themselves mad trying to imagine what they meant.

And take it as a warning. Draco would return.

He stepped from the house, locked the door behind him, and spent a moment pondering if he should tell Harry where he had been. Then he shook his head briskly. No, Harry still needed some more time to get used to the idea, and to talk about his childhood with Theresa. Draco would tell him later.

He did think he heard a faint crack before he Apparated, but every possible spell revealed nothing. Draco shrugged it off as his own paranoia. Surely, if someone knew what he were doing, he would have received a letter from the Ministry by now.


	42. These Circles

_Chapter 42—These Circles_

"Yes, but when I said that I wanted to leave the Manor, I didn't imagine _this_ would happen," Harry said, tugging at the collar of his robes. They were dress robes, but far finer than those he'd bought for the Yule Ball his fourth year at Hogwarts, or even those he'd worn out with Draco to the Half-Globe Theater. These slid across his skin with a rasp that echoed in his ears every time he moved. Harry supposed that was how one knew they were fine clothes. They couldn't be fine clothes if they were comfortable.

"You needed to attend a party like this sooner or later, Harry," Draco said. He seemed perfectly comfortable with his own clothes. _He would, _Harry thought, and frowned at him. _Ponce._ "These are the circles you're going to be frequenting with me when everyone accepts us fully." He put out his arm. Harry ignored it, for the moment, more interested in what Draco's words implied.

"If people haven't fully accepted us yet, why did Blaise's mother invite us tonight?"

"Novelty value," said Draco, and his grin flashed like a comet. Harry told himself that it didn't do odd things to his stomach, because, really, how soppy was _that?_ "Mrs. Zabini has a great belief in the value of novelty. No one has ever had the great Auror Harry Potter at a function before, and certainly no one has ever had Harry Potter in the company of Draco Malfoy anywhere."

"Mrs. Parkinson did."

"A small, private gathering doesn't count. This will be rather large, and attended by several public personages from the Ministry, the Quidditch world, and a few of the, ah, _philanthropic_ causes that Mrs. Zabini supports." Draco pushed his arm forward again. "Come, Harry. You said once that you didn't want to deprive me of my social life. Well, these people make up quite a large part of my social life."

"Perhaps I do want to deprive you of it," Harry muttered, accepting Draco's arm with bad grace. "At least, the stupid parts of it."

"Don't be so bad-tempered, Harry," Draco whispered into his ear, which of course set off various shivers through Harry's skin. "I promise, when we come back to the Manor tonight, I'll make it up to you."

"You'll probably have a lot to make up for." Harry couldn't help grimacing as he thought of the way Blaise Zabini had behaved at the Half-Globe with the little blonde witch on his arm. He didn't want to spend the whole evening among such people, let alone those who might be even worse.

"Then I'll fuck you into the mattress," Draco said, in that smooth, polished voice that seemed so incompatible with what he was saying. "Or let you fuck me into the mattress. I'm not particular, Harry."

From somewhere, Harry found his smile. It was not, of course, because of Draco's words. He was, Harry reminded himself, very irritated with Draco at the moment. "I'm surprised that you can walk straight after what I did to you the other day," he said innocently. "Or did you choose these robes to cover the way that you're walking bow-legged?"

Draco gave him a superior look. "You're good, Harry, but not that good, not yet. It was your first time, remember."

"Promise to stay home tonight," said Harry, "and I'll have another go."

Draco had a very odd expression on his face for a moment, as if he were considering it, but then he shook his head. "I think not, Harry," he said, and put his hand on Harry's lower back the way he liked to do, steering him towards the edge of the wards, and thus a place they could Apparate, without giving Harry time to object further.

* * *

_He thinks of the Manor as home._

Draco could not even describe the fierce triumph that boiled up in him, other than calling it triumph. He had _succeeded_. Harry had come far, from flinching at the thought of relaxation to calling the Manor home and cajoling Draco for sex, and the largest part of his success was due to _him,_ Draco Malfoy.

Draco only wished there were prizes for rescuing the minds of otherwise fine wizards who had condemned themselves to a life of self-sacrifice for no sufficient reason. He was sure that he would have carried it off despite all the competition.

But then, of course, the prize he truly needed was Harry on his arm, and, when they entered Mrs. Zabini's decorated home, the longing, envious stares he had dreamed of. Everyone knew that he and Harry were together now; they just hadn't known how good Harry looked until this moment.

And it wasn't only his looks, Draco had to concede, glancing sideways at him as they strode into the room. No one announced them; no one needed to. The aura of power Harry carried with him did it as well as a shout. Most people turned around, knowing the magic in the room had changed. And then their glances became pinned, and they couldn't look away from him for several minutes.

Draco basked in the stares that came his way, and he had the heart to smile graciously at Mrs. Zabini when she swept up to them, one hand extended.

"Harry," he said, and took Mrs. Zabini's hand to kiss it, "this is Gloriana Zabini, Blaise's mother and my mother's _dear_ friend. Currently on—I think it was her ninth husband, wasn't it, Mrs. Zabini?"

* * *

Harry didn't hear Gloriana's answer. He probably didn't want to, anyway, not when Draco had asked the question in that shockingly spiteful tone. He was too busy staring at Gloriana.

She was a remarkably beautiful woman, who wore her age as lightly as beads. Her skin was dark, and her black hair gleaming and piled on her head in a style Harry hadn't ever seen a witch use, highlighted with silver ornaments in the shape of crescent moons. Her brown eyes watched Draco with a bright, sharp amusement that made Harry think immediately of some of the criminals he'd tracked, suspects who hid right under the Aurors' noses and pretended sympathy for the poor, bereaved family for weeks before he stumbled on to their secrets.

He disliked her intensely, and immediately.

She turned to him when Draco had greeted her, and stared at him. Harry felt compelled to kiss her hand, because Draco had, but he pulled away from her as soon as he could. He'd heard the rumors that she poisoned her husbands, or at least managed to survive them as they died, again and again.

"Ah, Mr. Potter," she said, as easily as if they were old friends. "I hoped that you would sit by me at the head of the table." She held out her arm out to his, and Harry could only hope, as he took it with his own, quietly fuming, that he was making the gesture in the right way. He was sure Gloriana would notice every single mistake he made, save them up, and gossip about them with her friends later.

"If you wish, ma'am," he murmured.

"So formal, Mr. Potter!" She glanced up at him, and though her eyelashes lowered demurely, he was sure she was laughing at him. "I do hope that you will call me Gloriana."

"And you'll call me Harry?" he asked. He didn't really care what she called him, one way or the other. He was sure that nothing she did could make him think better of her, at least.

"No. I think Mr. Potter suits you better." She gave him a meditative smile, and steered him past several of her guests, men and women in fine robes whom Harry thought should have better manners than to stare. Several cameras flashed. He could feel himself stiffen, which Gloriana didn't miss, of course.

"You don't like the press, Mr. Potter?" she murmured.

"I like them best when they aren't paying attention to me." Harry answered from between stiff lips, putting on a rictus smile that he supposed would have to appear in any photographs gracing the papers tomorrow. "I had quite enough of their 'attention' while I was at Hogwarts."

"Ah, yes. I seem to recall that the articles about you then were not exactly—flattering." Gloriana cocked her head as they arrived at the table, which was already crowded with people. She waited until Harry reached the proper conclusion and pulled her chair out for her. "But you must have received more positive attention since then, as you killed the Dark Lord for us and freed the entire island from a deadly menace."

Harry flushed. He knew she was quoting from one of the newspaper articles that had appeared in the wake of Voldemort's death, though he couldn't remember who had written it. "And then there were eleven years of blankness," he said, sitting roughly in the chair next to her and looking around for Draco. Inexplicably, Draco appeared to have left them alone. "I preferred those."

"But everyone likes attention, Mr. Potter." Gloriana put her hand on his and gave him a friendly smile, with cat-like edges. "Where would you be if young Draco had not taken notice of you, after all?"

"Still in the Ministry," said Harry.

"And did you _truly_ prefer it there, to scenes like this?" With a slight tilt of her head, Gloriana seemed to encompass the huge, decorated room, the house-elves popping in and out, the wizards with glasses of wine and goblets of chilled drinks, the fluttering cloths on the tables, the food that was beginning to appear and fill Harry's nostrils with odors he didn't even recognize. "I have been to Ministry functions. While they can lay claim to a certain—bare—elegance, they can have no scenes to compare with our beauties here."

"I don't need beauties to be happy," Harry said shortly, fighting the urge to grind his teeth.

Gloriana gave him a slower version of the same smile. "What an _unusual_ young man you are."

* * *

Draco had let Mrs. Zabini take Harry away from him deliberately. Harry had to learn how to survive on his own and make conversation at parties like this sooner or later. Besides, he'd spent the last few days cooped up in the Manor with no one but Harry for company, unless one counted the house-elves or the brief visit from Narcissa—and Draco didn't. He wanted to see and speak with other people. He'd located Blaise on the far side of the room, and made straight for him.

Of course, given that the world couldn't do what Draco wanted it to do when he wanted it to do it, Blaise turned out not to be the best choice for conversational partner. He was already drunk, and finishing another glass of wine with a great gulp, literally throwing back his head, when Draco caught him. Draco concealed a wince as ably as he could, and managed to paste a smile on his face by the time Blaise turned around and stared at him blearily.

"What's the matter with you?" he asked. No one was near them, since most of the wizards and witches seemed to have a good idea what condition Blaise was in and wanted to avoid him as much as possible, so Draco spoke without fear of being overheard.

"Gathering up my courage," Blaise murmured, and drank deeply again.

"For _what_?" Draco had never known Blaise to have much need of courage. He ran away and married Mudblood witches sometimes, that couldn't be denied, but that was a sudden flight of fancy, not premeditated. Draco cocked his head to the side and studied his friend with narrowed eyes.

"I have—I have something to do," Blaise said, and turned away from Draco to call for a house-elf. One of the little creatures popped up in front of him with a glass of brandy and a deep bow. Blaise had the brandy in his hand an instant later, and had swallowed most of it an instant after that. Draco shuddered at the waste.

"What's that?" he asked.

Blaise pointed a triumphant finger at him. "I don't have to tell _you!_" Abruptly, he leaned nearer Draco and lowered his voice again. "And I'd—I'd be careful if I were you, Draco. Not the _best_ position to be in, is it?" He gave a large wink.

Draco frowned. "What the _fuck_ are you talking about, Blaise?" He hadn't heard any gossip that related to himself and wasn't about Harry or the Ministry. If he'd somehow got into a scrape without his knowing about it, he wanted to hear the gossip immediately.

Blaise wagged the finger this time. "Heard your mother talking with mine," he said, and his face darkened, the way it always did when Gloriana came up. "And she said—she said you'd been a _bad boy, _Draco."

Draco relaxed. Of course his mother was displeased with him still. He knew that. She could pretend, but she would never like Harry, and the moment Draco could find out the details of her plans, he intended to send her out of his company for at least three months. Perhaps he and Harry would go to Europe, and Narcissa could walk about the Manor and admire the portraits of past Malfoys all she liked. "I know that," he said. "Don't worry about that, Blaise."

"Don't _worry_?" Blaise snorted. "I'm not worrying. I have enough—enough troubles of my own." And he turned and stalked away with a wounded dignity that his stagger rather ruined.

Draco muffled his laughter in his sleeve, and then followed Blaise into the room where the dinner would happen.

Then he realized Blaise was striding determinedly towards his mother.

_Or maybe it won't be happening, _Draco thought, pausing in the doorway to watch.

* * *

Harry had been forced to revise his opinion of Gloriana. She could talk about Ministry politics in the same way she talked about the people around them at dinner: lightly, maliciously, and with absolute accuracy. He had inwardly flinched at her description of the Minister as a cripple using the _Daily Prophet_ and the work of his Aurors as crutches, but he had to admit, after some thinking about it, that this was true. Of course, Gloriana couldn't let it rest there, even when he gave her a reluctant smile.

"I have heard, Mr. Potter," she said, sipping from a small cup that contained a liquid Harry couldn't see over the rim, "that the Minister is in no small part indebted to _your_ work."

"My work, and the work of others in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, of course," said Harry carelessly, stifling the urge to look around for Draco. This was the exact topic he had hoped to avoid all evening. "I hope someone hasn't been telling you remarkable tales about my heroism and bravery, Gloriana. After all, there's a reason I've barely been in the papers these last few years. It's not as though I did anything very special."

"No, it's not as though you courted attention," Gloriana corrected him calmly. "You said that yourself. And I know that you're a good Auror, Mr. Potter. I read the articles carefully, whenever they appeared." She smiled at him again. "And we have Draco to thank for taking you away from that life, where you were used shamelessly and never repaid for your work, and giving you a new way to live."

Harry flushed. "I would never want it to be said that I resent the Ministry," he said. "Of course I don't."

"Oh, I know most of the facts," said Gloriana, and dropped her voice. "They used your name and your work, while they kept the gains for themselves. No increases in pay, even, across the years that you worked there, though you did so much. It would only be _human_ of you to resent them, Mr. Potter."

Harry shook his head stubbornly and looked away. If he thought about it, he had to admit that a hard kernel of unpleasant emotion had grown in him over the last few days. Theresa had only broached the subject once, before Harry's growl had driven her off, but that kernel was there. Harry had to wonder why Amelia Bones had pleaded with him to return when she had to be able to see, much more clearly than he could have at the time, that he was suffering. And why not insist that he take holidays, the way that she had with other Aurors? Could they really not spare him? Or did they really not care, in the way that they cared about Aurors who had spouses and friends and families?

_It's not as though you courted caring, either. You didn't try to make friends with your partners, and you always reported to her as an Auror. Why should you be dearer to her than anyone else?_

_She should at least have trusted you the way she treated the others, if no better._

Harry shrugged and fixed his gaze on Gloriana's face. She was leaning forward with avid interest, eyes gleaming.

He never knew what words he might have fixed to his confusion.

"_Mother!_"

Gloriana looked over Harry's shoulder with a faint frown. "Blaise," she said, with an underlying sharpness that Harry heard through the sweetness like the hiss of a snake, "I am entertaining a guest."

"I just wanted to tell you," Blaise said, swaying back and forth, "that I'm not marrying that _bitch_ you wanted me to marry."

A few people gasped. Harry eased his chair back, not wanting to be caught between mother and son.

Gloriana narrowed her eyes. "What did you say?"

"You heard me." Blaise clapped his hands and glared at her. "I refuse to obey you any more, to be a slave—" He choked, a bit, and Harry thought he knew where some of his courage came from. "I _refuse_ to be a party to my own degradation!" he said, looking proud that he'd got the long word out on his own. "I'm going back to Sarah. I was happy with her, at least."

And then he turned and left the room, head high, though he nearly crashed into the doorway on his way out.

Harry blinked at nothing, and thought, _Well. It seems that people are human in these circles, too._


	43. A Minor Disturbance

_Chapter 43- A Minor Disturbance_

Gloriana made a soft _tch_ noise under her breath. Harry turned to see her shaking her head slowly and sadly.

"A minor disturbance, Mr. Potter," she told him, giving him a faint smile. "Such a passionate young man as Blaise is always making them. Not often in front of strangers, of course, which is the only thing that usually enables me to keep them out of the _Prophet._" She sighed and stood, clapping her hands in much the same manner as Blaise had done. Most of the conversations died, and the attention of the room refocused on her instantly.

"I am sorry for my son's atrocious behavior," she said, and cocked her head to the side. "I see that I shall have to have Antonio bring out the final course a little earlier than planned."

Antonio turned out to be the name of a wizard servant instead of a house-elf. He might even be the chef, Harry thought, considering how proudly he walked beside the enormous floating platter of meat. Harry didn't even _recognize_ the head of the ferocious creature lying on the plate, though he managed to recognize a ridiculous number of spines and horns. It caused a burst of laughter and applause from the wizards and witches surrounding him, though.

Gloriana caught his eye. "Genuine Calydonian boar, Mr. Potter," she said. "You don't often get them now. I had to commission the hunt for one months ago, and then of course there's the problem of getting them to Britain..." She shook her head. "Some meats are too delicate to be Apparated."

Though Harry knew how dangerous it would be to become drunk here, he couldn't help picking up the glass of wine at his elbow and toasting her. "Gloriana," he said, "you certainly know how to turn a blunder to your advantage."

She laughed at him, soft and low. "When I said it was a minor disturbance, Mr. Potter, I meant it," she said. "Nothing should be allowed to interrupt this, your first genuine entertainment since you left the Ministry. I know what happened when you and young Draco went to the Half-Globe. Enjoy your dinner, and I do urge you to try a slice of the boar. Not to everyone's taste, but that which isn't to everyone's taste can still be quite fine."

She gave him a little bow and glided away, leaving him to ponder the meaning of her final words. Harry was sure that was exactly as she'd intended it.

* * *

Draco had never been able to anticipate the neat way that Gloriana Zabini would catch him and guide him away from the places he intended to be. That was not the only reason he found himself unable to appreciate the full range of her talents, but it was surely one. He managed to smile at her when she took his arm and led him towards the center of the floor. There had not been an announcement about dancing, but there didn't need to be; the moment the house-elves saw their mistress there, they scrambled, and music began to play from the walls. It was a tune Draco knew well, one played at dinners and parties he could attend from the time he was eight or so.

He knew Gloriana had chosen it because it was loud enough to cover the sound of their talk and he and she could both follow the steps without thought. That didn't keep him from resenting what she'd done, either. He still took her hand and smiled at her as they locked eyes, but he said, "I suppose you think I put your son up to this, Mrs. Zabini."

Always best to attack first, with her, and he had the satisfaction of seeing her eyelids flutter briefly. But she said, "No. It is obvious where Blaise received his courage, and obvious what I must do to deal with it."

Briefly, Draco felt sorry for Blaise, but then dismissed it. His rebellion had been too long in coming, and his mother was in too much of a position of power over him. She would win, because she always did, but it was Blaise's laziness and weakness that had allowed this in the first place.

Besides, he needed all his sorrow for himself right now.

"Then I can't imagine what you think we have to speak about, Mrs. Zabini," he said, and spun her with one hand on her hip, his feet tapping the dance floor in a designated rhythm, his stare never faltering from hers. They were nearly the same size, and Gloriana was an accomplished and sophisticated dancer. Draco imagined they must look striking together, from a distance. It was the only satisfaction he could derive from the dance, at least. "As your son is the only thing we have in common."

"We have a common concern for the welfare of Narcissa Malfoy in mind, also, I should hope," said Gloriana, and the soft tone draped over the words made them far worse than if she had fallen on him claw and fang. "Ah, Draco, you are a disappointment to your mother."

"Not as much as Blaise is to you, I think." Draco spun her, and then recovered her, hating the moments her face was out of sight. Surely, whatever she was planning would show first there.

"Of course not," said Gloriana, and stepped neatly aside to avoid another couple who'd decided to join them. "But Blaise has an excuse that you do not. He has been a disappointment to me for far longer. Draco, Narcissa is concerned about you. And after speaking with young Mr. Potter this evening, I think she has a right to be." Her eyes were large, brown, guileless.

_And deadly, _Draco reminded himself. _Men who thought they were smart fell for the deceptions in those eyes._

"You don't like him?" he asked lightly. "The disapproval of a beautiful woman is something we must all strive to avoid, of course."

"You would do well to remember that your mother is also beautiful."

Draco caught a grimace just before he made it. This was the first time he could ever remember Gloriana failing to respond to a compliment. She believed in what she said.

Which, of course, increased his paranoia, and his inclination to wonder why she had wanted to say it to him.

"And the actions of brash young men can determine the future," he said. People whirled near them now, but the music still covered the majority of the conversation, and at the very worst, whoever might hear those words would think they referred to Blaise.

"They can," said Gloriana. "But only when beautiful women do not make their disapproval clearly felt."

"And so you disapprove of someone who will not continue his family line?" Draco hated stabbing out in the dark like this, but he had no idea what else to do. And it was true that both Gloriana and Narcissa shared a common concern for grandchildren. What Draco couldn't figure out was why Gloriana thought putting pressure on _him_ would enable her to win Blaise back.

Unless, of course, she was considering a marriage between a Zabini child and a Malfoy child in the future...

But Draco didn't think that was the case. Both Narcissa and Gloriana would have pressed down more sternly if it were. And with so many wizard families having only one child and traditions loosening, they couldn't be sure there would be a son and daughter pair inclined to obey their parents twenty years from now.

"Do you feel it?" Gloriana asked him.

Draco realized she had guided him skillfully to the outer edge of the dance floor, so skillfully he hadn't noticed, and now stood still, clasping his arm and forcing him to pay attention. He drew his breath in harshly, far more annoyed with himself than her, and then cocked his head.

He noticed nothing he hadn't noticed all evening, though, and gave his head a sharp shake that people would, hopefully, think was only to remove sweat from his forehead. "Nothing, Mrs. Zabini. I'm sorry."

"After so long living with it, perhaps you do not," said Gloriana. Her hold on his arm tightened. "I can feel it, Draco, because it has not invaded _my_ home before now. It is your Mr. Potter's magic." She leaned nearer still, and Draco wondered who would report tomorrow that Mrs. Zabini was considering taking a Malfoy husband. "It would be wise to keep a wizard that powerful, if you would date him and pull him into our circles, happy. Not to make mistakes that might lead to him losing control of his magic."

Draco stared at her. He had no idea why Narcissa would have told Gloriana about Harry's loss of control at the Manor. No matter how he sorted through his thoughts, he couldn't see what advantage that won his mother. Did she really think Gloriana could persuade him out of his relationship with Harry where she had failed?

_Perhaps she is so far gone into delusion as to believe anything._

Draco took a moment to rub at his mouth and then shake his head again. "I plan to keep him _very_ happy, Mrs. Zabini," he said. "If you doubt my commitment to him because I've had so many lovers before, let me reassure you now. You'll need to send invitations to the Manor in his name _and_ mine for years to come."

Gloriana stared into his face for a moment, her study intense. Then she sighed and actually made him a little curtsey, another thing that Draco couldn't remember happening before.

"When the time comes, Draco," she said, "I trust that you will remember I tried to help you, and to balance between the disapproval of a beautiful woman and the actions of a brash young man."

And she turned away.

Draco couldn't pursue her and demand an explanation. For one thing, how would it look? For another, he knew as surely as he knew his own name that she wouldn't give him one.

He shook his head again, like a horse surfacing after a long immersion in cold water, and then went towards the table and Harry.

* * *

Harry found that he could enjoy the food heaped on his plate, even the slice of gamy Calydonian boar, as long as he didn't look towards the center of the room.

It was ridiculous. It wasn't as if he could dance. And he knew, from the expression on Draco's face, that he and Gloriana were hardly having a flirtatious conversation in the middle of the dance floor.

And still, he felt something worryingly like jealousy squirming in the center of his chest.

_This is stupid, _he reminded himself, and started a bit when someone slid into the seat beside him. When he turned to face the person, however, it was Draco, leaning past him to scoop up a slice of the meat from his plate. Harry could feel his smile widening, and he barely resisted the urge to touch him.

"Learn something?" he asked.

"Why would you think that?" Draco ate neatly enough that it didn't sound at all as if he were speaking with food in his mouth.

"Stop talking with food in your mouth," Harry told him.

Draco gave him a pointed look, and swallowed.

"You were speaking with Mrs. Zabini," said Harry, with a half-hearted gesture at the dance floor. "And she'd spent a great deal of time talking to me about politics. I don't think you were talking about anything less serious."

"It was Blaise, for the most part," said Draco, and gave a slight shake of his head. "That, and she doesn't like me upsetting Narcissa." He shrugged, and the shadow passed from his face as if it hadn't been, leaving him to lean in and look keenly interested. Harry told himself other people were still there, still watching them. Just because Draco made him _feel_ like the only person in the room didn't mean it was true. "Politics? What did she say?"

"Witty remarks about the Minister." Harry took another sip of his wine and looked away, but Draco lightly clasped his wrist.

"Harry."

"What?" Harry snapped, turning around. The chair rattled beneath him. Humiliated, he hid his face behind his cup again, and hoped to God that no one had noticed that.

"It was something more than that." Draco wasn't quite touching him, but it was amazing, it really was, Harry thought sourly, how his hand could hover above Harry's face, his arm, his shoulder, and manage to make it _feel_ like he was being touched. The hairs on his arms rose, as if they wanted Draco's fingers on them, and God, what had got into his head tonight? "You can read witty remarks about the Minister in the _Prophet_. He's an easy target. It was something else."

"I hate not being a good liar," Harry muttered.

"I love it." Draco leaned near enough that, this time, his imaginary fingers stroked Harry's hair and ear. Harry shifted away a bit. Draco didn't seem to mind. "I know enough people who make an accomplishment of it. Tell me what you're thinking, Harry." He all but crooned the last words.

"She made me think about the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and what they were using me for," Harry told his plate. "And I've thought about it since then, and the more I think about it, the more certain I am that I don't want to return to being an Auror."

Draco's hand _did_ touch him this time, lying like a warm cloth on his shoulder. "Go on," he said.

Harry swore under his breath. "It's stupid," he pointed out, still not meeting Draco's eyes. "After all, what else can I do? I'm not trained for anything else. A public sacking wouldn't make me a more appealing prospect, either. And I _can_ still help. I can imagine reading about murders and rapes, duels and curses, and wondering how many of them I could have prevented."

Draco was silent for a long moment. Then his light touch grew firmer, and he said, "Harry, we'll spend a little more time here, eating, just to show that we _can_ spend an evening in public without being driven off. And then we're going to see Severus."

Harry turned around then, to stare at him. "What makes you imagine that he'll agree to see me? Or that I want to see him, for that matter?" He hadn't looked at Snape since a day eleven years ago, across the courtroom in which the Wizengamot conducted the trials. Snape had sneered at him. Harry had looked away. He hadn't hated the man by then. The Weasleys were dead, and everything had stopped and dulled and frozen.

"What matters is that _I_ want you two to meet." Draco was imperious, head lifted, eyes wide and icy. "You would have done it anyway, since he's an important person in my life, and you've become one. But what matters even more is that he does something he wasn't trained for, and he does it very well." He leaned closer to Harry, and his face was passionate and convincing enough that Harry couldn't imagine saying no. "I want you to see that just because you make a change doesn't mean your life ends."

Harry opened his mouth to remind Draco of how much he and Snape had hated each other in Hogwarts.

Of course, what came out of it, given the expression on Draco's face, was, "Yes."


	44. Not What He Was Trained For

_Chapter 44- Not What He Was Trained For_

To say that Harry was unsure about Draco's plan of taking him to meet Snape would be giving Draco's plan too much credit. For one thing, Harry didn't see how Draco could be sure that they wouldn't end up screaming at each other, and for another, there was the possibility that it might go much worse than that, and Draco would be picking pieces of one of them out of his hair.

_Will it really be that bad?_

Not on his part, Harry reassured himself as he and Draco landed in front of a neat, spare house in the middle of a vale surrounded by rocky hills. He'd had no thought and no emotion to spare for Snape in the past few years. But Snape would probably still hate him as much as ever.

_So Draco'll be picking pieces of me out of his hair, then._

"Come _on_, Harry," Draco said, pinching his arm when he hung back. "You do realize that you look ridiculous standing there and gaping, don't you, and that such behavior is hardly going to impress Severus, either?"

"I don't want to impress him," Harry muttered, but trotted obediently at Draco's side as he went towards the door of the house. Roses, or some flowers much like them, curled around the eaves. Harry eyed them in amazement, opened his mouth to comment, and then snapped his jaw shut again as he watched one of the "roses" grab a fly and swallow it. At least the world hadn't gone mad, and Snape still surrounded himself with nasty things.

_Even though these nasty things smell much better than potions fumes._

Draco rapped several times on the door, in a careful pattern, and then shook his head and started tugging on Harry's arm again. "He's probably around back," he said. "In the garden. He never pays attention to the house when he's there."

Harry couldn't help gaping a little as Draco pulled him. "Garden?" he asked.

Draco grinned at him over his shoulder. "Of course," he said. "I told you that Severus doesn't strictly do what he was trained for any more, Harry. Oh, he still brews potions, but for a long time after the war, he couldn't do it under his own name, and what work he could get didn't bring in an income reliable enough for him. So he turned to Herbology. He gardens quite well, as a matter of fact."

While Harry was still trying to come to terms with the idea of Snape as gardener, Draco showed him the idea embodied.

* * *

No matter how many times Draco saw Severus's garden, it never failed to both impress and relax him. Perhaps it was because he usually tended to come here when he was upset, and so the spiritual strength practically emanating from the plants had important associations in his mind.

The gate led into a stone path, but long-limbed plants like miniature weeping willow trees blocked most of it, and they could twist around to trip up and snare the unwary. Above them grew monstrous ferns of a kind Draco had never seen outside this garden, and among them nodded glowing orchids. Vines snaked along the ground. Regular English yews and oaks had to fight for pride of place among the general clutter.

And yet, looked at with a gardener's eyes, Draco knew, this was a place of peace, of beauty, of wonderful variety. He suspected Severus had studied Muggle methods, though he would never admit it.

"We have to go in there?" Harry asked, eyeing the plants unenthusiastically.

Draco laughed at him as he opened the gate. "Scared of a few vines, Harry?"

"If you'd seen the ravine where Voldemort decided to hide Ravenclaw's portrait, you wouldn't ask that question."

Draco stared at him, and then shrugged. He could always ask Harry about it later. Besides, he rather enjoyed the idea that he didn't know everything about the man he was in love with. It left him things to discover in the future.

"I promise that nothing in Severus's garden will hurt you," he said, putting his hand low on Harry's back. Harry still hadn't questioned him about the meaning of that gesture, but Severus would know well enough the claiming it implied. "Except Severus himself."

"What a coincidence. What do you think I'm most afraid of?"

Draco laughed, but pushed him forwards. It was natural that two of the most important people in his life should meet, and he really did think Severus could help Harry. Not by talking to him- God knew Severus couldn't manage a sympathetic word if his life depended on it, though he could keep a civil enough tongue when speaking to his clients- but by showing Harry that it _was_ possible for one man to change and yet still live. Harry knew what Severus had been when he had to teach in Hogwarts. He couldn't help but remark the change since.

And if he could remark the change, he might start to think that _he_ had the chance to live, even now, and ignore the siren call of the Ministry straining to summon him back.

Ultimately, of course, Harry would have to make the decision as to whether he wanted to continue being an Auror. But Draco saw no reason that he could not- help matters along a little. Tilt the balance.

The regular _swish-thwack_ sound he could hear as soon as they passed the garden gate let him know where Severus was, and he guided Harry down the path with a light but firm hand, not letting him wander off to investigate the white flowers blooming temptingly close or the two ferns that touched each other several feet above their heads. The plants wouldn't hurt them, but Severus would have a fit if they damaged what he depended on for his livelihood, as much as he had ever become furious when someone ruined a potion.

Six bends, and the path flared open to reveal Severus knee-deep in tall grass, a scythe moving easily from side to side as he cut the ingredients he needed for a potion- or perhaps trimmed weeds. Draco had never managed to keep straight what plants were there because Severus wanted them to be, and which plants strayed in and needed to be curtailed. At times, he suspected his old mentor changed his mind from one month to the next, and this week's valued experiments were tomorrow's intruders.

He waited until Severus, who wore a dark robe as was his wont, but also heavy gardening gloves and boots, had made what looked like the last swing in a long row of them. Then he called, "Severus!"

The man held up a hand without looking at him, studying the grass as if he expected it to run away. Then he nodded sharply, and turned.

Draco saw the moment when he became aware of Harry. He went very still. Then he stalked forward, his eyes glittering and his face thrust forward as if he were a large bird set to pluck out Harry's eyes.

The danger sign, though, was the whiteness of his knuckles as they tightened around the shaft of the scythe. Draco prudently stepped forward and put himself in between his mentor and Harry. He was _almost_ sure he could repair a wound inflicted by that weapon, but he had no desire to see Harry's stomach sliced open and his guts spilling on the ground.

"Good evening," he said.

"It cannot be good," said Severus, his voice lower and more disgusted than Draco could remember hearing it since the morning a Dragonpox Draught exploded and left them both covered with red goo, "when you have brought _that_ one to visit me."

He spun before Draco could object or soothe him, and said, "I suppose that you expect me to pay you the tribute of a compliment, Mr. Potter, or thanks for saving the world. As a matter of fact, what you did matters less to me than the scones that I had for breakfast this morning."

Draco winced a bit, but glanced at Harry to see how he would take that. Harry appeared to have ignored the words entirely, and was gazing raptly at the tall grass Snape had been cutting. His eyes were wide. Draco stifled a flash of desire at their brightness, and the way that the wind stirred Harry's dark curls. This was at _least_ as good as he should look all the time.

"Did you hear me, Mr. Potter?" Severus had perfected the art of the cutting tone in the years since the war, so that, if he no longer spoke quite as meanly as he had before, he could still make someone feel less than two inches high with no more than a slight intonation. This intonation suggested that Harry Potter was incapable of hearing anything but the voices shouting praise inside his own skull.

"Yes," Harry said, facing Severus, and Draco raised an eyebrow. _Well, well. _This was a Harry he didn't think he'd seen before, somewhere between the utter calm he displayed as an Auror and the open, mature adult Draco had been learning to know in the past few weeks. This Harry didn't glance down or back away from Severus, but kept a respectful eye on both the scythe and his sleeves, looking for a wand. "You're not keen on seeing me here. I don't think I would have been keen for someone I hated to invade my secret sanctuary, either. It's a beautiful place."

Severus's eyes narrowed until they shone like flakes of obsidian. Draco knew he was looking for some sign that he was being made fun of. "It is hardly secret, Mr. Potter. I do enough business on the produce of this garden to keep myself tolerably comfortable."

"Of course, sir," said Harry, in a tone that most people would have been able to infer nothing more than politeness from.

Severus was not most people. "And how is it that you didn't know about this before, Potter?" he drawled, leaning on the scythe. "I have, after all, heard of the exploits of Harry Potter, most talented Auror in a century. You could have learned of me easily enough. Unless, of course, the thought of someone doing his duty to the extremes of loyalty was so unpleasant to you that you had to shut your ears."

Draco winced. "Doing his duty to the extremes of loyalty" was the phrase Severus had used to exonerate himself when he was on trial before the Wizengamot. Or, more precisely, the shade of Dumbledore left behind in a Pensieve had used it. Harry had attended the trial, and the words would bring up painful memories of it.

"I know a great deal about duty, sir," Harry said, still unflapped. Draco had the distinct, if bizarre, sensation that he was enjoying himself. "Not as much about healing or moving on. I think that's what Draco brought me here to learn."

Severus slanted a glance at Draco that said, "So this is _your_ fault." Draco shrugged. Of course it was, and Severus wasn't thinking if he hadn't figured that out already. It wasn't as though Harry had known where Severus had lived, or could have Apparated in alone without the wards going mad.

"I am afraid, Mr. Potter," Severus said now, leaning forward to glare at Harry, "that I gave up being a teacher when I left Hogwarts."

"I know that, sir." Harry still refused to back down or look away, and he was smiling slightly now. He waved a hand at the garden all around them, starting with the scythe and moving in a wide circle to the trees and other flowers. "But you can teach by example. And I've learned more in a few moments of studying your garden than I could have learned in a week of talking to you. You do have beauty in your soul, though you don't like to admit it."

Severus seemed utterly unable to decide how to deal with this. In the end, he settled for another one of those accusing looks at Draco.

Draco tried hard to contain his exultant laughter as he put a hand on Harry's shoulder and drew the other man against him. Harry went. He never removed his eyes from Severus, still respecting that scythe and the man's skill with spells, but he didn't look upset, either. Draco could feel Harry's heart racing when they were close enough, but he showed no sign of it on the surface.

_This is what he could be. _Draco stroked the nape of his neck. _Self-contained, in control, strong and unmoved. How he'd shock them all back at the Ministry, where they were used to an obedient drone._

"How much of your income would you say still comes from brewing, Severus?" he asked casually.

"At least half," Severus said coolly. Draco knew by the small twitches around his mouth that he didn't like the direction the conversation was taking, but he saw them only because he knew the man so well. Anyone else would have seen a long-suffering, patient fellow putting up with this intrusion on his work by incompetent people out of the goodness of his heart.

"But only half," Draco said. "The rest comes from what you rear and tend and grow here."

Severus straightened with a tiny growl. Draco knew there was only so much even he could get away with, and he was treading close to the boundaries. The very _thought_ that someone might make fun of him for having become both a gardener and a Potions master was enough to make Severus strike.

Draco didn't care. For Harry, he had defied his mother and the Ministry. He was prepared to go into far greater danger.

"There's nothing to be ashamed of in that," he said. "And there's no reason that you needed to stay with what you were before the war. Why didn't you go back to Hogwarts when the Headmistress asked you, Severus?"

"Because I was not mad enough to continue in a career I hated once there was no need for it," Severus replied. His eyes cut back and forth between Harry and Draco, and his face held half a dozen warnings. Draco chose to disregard them all. Harry had gone still against him. He was listening. That was the reason Draco had brought him here.

"Even though you know that there's no better Potions professor in Britain?" Draco pressed. "Even though you know that Slughorn doesn't teach your potential students half of what they need to know?"

Severus sneered, and either he had forgotten Harry was there- not likely- or he saw no reason not to say what he thought. "What people _might_ suffer because of the lack of me is not for me to say," he said. "Most likely, the dunderheads Slughorn teaches are quite happy to go on being dunderheads- happier than they would ever have been if I taught them."

"And the Slytherins?" Draco asked softly. Severus had helped him far more than he could articulate, even now, when he was Head of Slytherin House and Draco was a student at Hogwarts. His situation as guardian and protector of students was much closer to what Harry did for the people the Aurors helped.

Severus shrugged. "At one time I believed I was their mainstay, and that no one could have done the job I did. But I hear that Slughorn is more than competent, and that the gap in the ranks has been closed. When something needs doing, be assured, others around the gap will find someone to do it- if only to keep from having to do it themselves."

_That_ was it. _That_ was what Harry most needed to hear, Draco thought, rubbing gently at Harry's shoulders. Yes, Harry might solve cases that the other Aurors had a more difficult time with, but there was no sign that he was their _only_ wizard capable of solving cases like that. The others had become used to him, that was all, and found a way to pile more than his fair share of the work on him. And Harry had never complained, had even been glad of the work because it gave him validation, and without someone to complain for him, the situation had escalated into the dangerous, near-suicidal one Draco had found when he began studying Harry.

It was time for Harry to learn that other people could do his job. If he left the Aurors, the world would not collapse. He was too used to being unique, probably, since he'd been told again and again that he was the only one who could defeat Voldemort. But that wasn't true any more. He could take time, and breathe, and think about what he really _wanted_ to do, instead of what he felt driven to do.

From the harsh breath Harry took, Draco thought he must have realized that, too.

Severus's eyes narrowed, as if he had just realized how much he'd probably helped Harry. "Leave now," he said.

Normally, he would have invited Draco inside for tea, but Draco understood why the boundaries had been pushed and why. He nodded to Severus and turned away, one arm still about Harry's shoulders.

They made it out of the garden without Harry speaking once. Whenever Draco looked at him, he seemed deep in thought, but not upset. They weren't five steps up the path before the sound of Severus's scythe in the grass began again. Draco wasn't surprised. Severus usually used the garden as a source of work and pleasure, but confronted with Harry bloody Potter, as well as the undeniable proof that Draco was living with him and didn't intend to abandon him any time soon, he would need it as a release from stress.

They halted outside the garden gate. Draco relatched it.

"Draco?" Harry asked quietly.

Draco glanced at him. "Yes, Harry?"

"Don't you think that refusing to do something you know you can do, when it helps others, is as evil as hurting them?"

In one stride, Draco was behind Harry, and, dragging him close, bit him on the ear. Harry moaned softly, his knees buckling in sheer surprise. Draco kept him up with an arm around his waist, and whispered directly into his ear.

"It's better that you _know_ it helps them, Harry. Imagine what would have happened if I had moved to help you immediately, without studying the situation first. I wouldn't have had the least idea how to heal you, and you would probably have hated me even more, since I wouldn't have the proof of your decline that made you stay at the Manor."

Harry relaxed against him for a moment, then groaned and threw his head back when Draco bit him again. "Let's go home," he said. "And then you can fuck me into the bed, and then I can think."

Draco couldn't help asking, even through the arousal surging in his veins, "And the Ministry?"

"Give me time to think, Draco."

Draco supposed that was all he could ask for.


	45. Teasing Harry

_Chapter 45- Teasing Harry_

Harry had meant to change his plans when they arrived back at the Manor. He would detach himself, retreat into a corner, and think about the lessons, direct and otherwise, that he'd received from Snape's example. If he thought long enough, he hoped, even unconscious lessons would begin to surface.

That didn't work.

The moment they Apparated to the Manor- and they'd come directly into Harry's bedroom, which Harry hadn't realized was possible with the wards in place- Draco attacked him again, biting his neck, breathing into his ear, digging his hands under Harry's robes, and urging him towards the bed so fast they stumbled.

"Wait," Harry hissed. He'd said that he wanted Draco to fuck him into the mattress, yes, but he hadn't expected Draco to take him so literally. And, besides, he didn't know what to make of the desperation Draco was displaying now.

Draco drew back from him long enough to whisper, "Do you remember what I told you once, Harry?"

"What?" Harry wasn't trying to remember; he was just grateful for the chance to catch his breath and his balance. His head still spun in a lazy dance when he looked at Draco again, and he actually took a step backwards at the way his eyes gleamed. He enjoyed sex, of course he did, but Draco was regarding him with an intense expression that Harry had never seen before.

"I usually like to tease my partners," Draco said, "keep them on the edge for hours. I said I wouldn't do that to you because we'd both been waiting years, even though you didn't know you were waiting. But now- now, we've taken some of the edge off. I want to make you wait, tease you." His voice had deepened, his eyes widening and dilating and darkening, and he shifted slightly so that Harry could both see and feel how very turned on he was. "Will you let me do that to you, Harry?"

Harry froze for just a moment. He didn't think he was afraid of admitting he was gay any longer; he _certainly_ wasn't afraid of Draco's touch. But every time he'd gone to bed with Draco before, he'd been partially in control, enough to return sniping comments and argue with him about the best position. Draco was asking permission to reduce him past that, to make him lose control, to probably make him beg and do other things that Harry couldn't imagine sharing with anyone.

Draco's hand moved along the nape of his neck while Harry was trying to make his decision, fingers spidering like silk, drifting so lightly that Harry arched back involuntarily to increase the contact. Draco refused it. His fingers floated away at the same moment Harry altered his position, but remained close enough that Harry could just barely feel the pressure. He gritted his teeth.

"Will you?" Draco breathed. "I need your permission."

Instincts older than Auror training screamed at Harry to refuse. He _couldn't_ let himself go like this, couldn't let someone else have this measure of control over him. He would trust, and some final barrier would fall, and Draco would have the power to hurt him that no one else in the world had ever achieved. Voldemort had been able to kill his friends and make him grieve and hate, but he hadn't _mattered_ to Harry as a person, and every bit of manipulation he inflicted had been against Harry's express consent. Ron and Hermione had mattered, a great deal, but they had never asked him for intimacy like this. Ginny- Ginny probably would have, but she had died before they could advance that far.

Harry didn't think he'd be able to go back again if he let Draco have this. Let Draco wake up tomorrow and decide he was bored, and Harry would be heartbroken. He wouldn't know where to go, what to do with himself. After the Weasley Massacre, he'd been able to close himself in as he did with the Dursleys and continue to survive on every level but the emotional one.

He would give up the option to do so tonight, if he let Draco have that final piece of him.

* * *

Draco kept almost-caressing Harry's neck, and wondered if Harry knew what he was asking for. From the way his jaw firmed and the way he trembled now and then, the motions jars against an intense level of control, Draco was fairly sure he did.

He could have given up, perhaps, backed off and waited for a better moment to ask it. But Draco didn't intend to. He had wanted this from Harry for two years. It was the power to make Harry's eyes shine the way they did when he captured a criminal, the ability to stand in the center of his life as _no_ one had when Draco began studying him. Along with the power to comfort and heal came the power to hurt, and so far Harry had not gone deeply enough to give Draco that.

Harry turned slowly. Draco kept his hand in the same place, so that now his fingers hovered an inch above Harry's face instead of the nape of his neck. Harry shivered, then drew in a deep breath.

"You know what this means," he said.

"I never would have asked if I didn't," Draco replied at once. He kept his voice soft and heated, beating against Harry's barriers like the touch of warm water. Harry's eyes half-lidded, and he shivered again.

"You realize I haven't ever given this to anyone," said Harry.

"That's part of why I want it."

"I hate being helpless."

The words could have sounded weak, Draco knew, but they carried so much more than fear. There was caution there, and the eagerness for self-control, and the fury that Harry exhibited when he was caught in a trap and couldn't aid someone else. Harry was afraid at least in part because he was giving up his strength, his isolation, rather than just because he was granting Draco the power to hurt him.

"I know that," Draco said, and let his voice croon. Harry's eyes darkened again. "And I can't promise that I won't hurt you, but I can promise that I'll properly value what you give me." Now he kissed the air above Harry's cheeks, and watched those cheeks flush as he began to pant.

"Damn," said Harry, and shut his eyes for a long moment. When he opened them, Draco was elated to see reason peering through the desire. Harry had made a conscious decision to surrender, not just one controlled by his hormones. "What you promise had better be worth it, Malfoy."

"It is, it is," Draco whispered, and then leaned his weight on Harry, slowly but inexorably bearing him backwards onto the bed. The only point of contact was between their chests; Draco kept his hips arched so that his groin stayed away from Harry's, and his hands still hovered the same distance from his skin. When the other man lay sprawled beneath him, he picked up his wrists and moved them gently to the edges of the bed. "Now, I _could_ bind you," he said. "But I would prefer that you stay where I put you. Will you do that?"

Harry gave a shallow nod. His breathing had sped up so that he sounded like someone trying to find fresh air in the middle of a fire. Draco paused to watch him for a moment, then braced his elbows on the bed, lifted himself high, and bent down for their first proper kiss since Harry had started having doubts.

Harry opened his mouth without being told, and for long moments Draco simply concentrated on the thorough kiss, rolling his tongue over and down, licking the insides of Harry's cheeks and his teeth, laving his mouth until Harry was making small whimpering noises and straining to get closer.

Draco pulled back and whispered, "Stay still, remember?"

A shudder raced through Harry, and then he lay obediently still. Draco moved back in for another kiss, while at the same time he picked up his wand and cast a spell he had practiced so many times that he could do it nonverbally with ease.

* * *

A hundred tiny legs raced up and down Harry's chest.

Not in reality, he knew; he had recognized the feel of magic as soon as it began. But it burned his skin with a slow smolder that he had never felt before. He was used to desperate lust and competitive arousal. Not this slow spiral, which completed one turn, allowed him to get comfortable with what he was feeling, and then urged him one step higher, one more notch into frenzy.

Draco's kiss wasn't _enough_. Harry couldn't tell if this yearning for more contact sprang from the desire, or if he would have felt it even without the spell urging him into gasps and moans. He started to lift his hands. He would clamp them on Draco's shoulders and drive him downwards. Then he would _have_ to give Harry more than just the lips and tongue touching him right now.

"You said you would lie still," Draco breathed against his mouth.

Harry clenched his jaw, thought about the promise for a moment, and managed to lower his wrists.

He had never been so hard, or so fevered. Trails of sensation raced down his chest, and connected his groin with his mouth, with his arms, with his face. He wanted hands everywhere on him at once, as impossible as he knew that to be. That particular lust probably _was_ a product of the spell, but right now, Harry didn't care. He wanted it.

And he had to lie still and trust Draco to know what he was doing, to not tease him so long, and eventually make the waiting worth it.

Harry let his head fall to the side, incapable of straining his neck into an unnatural position any longer. Draco didn't chide him; in fact, he made a small pleased sound, as if this evidence of Harry's weakness was what he'd wanted, and tilted his head to follow, even rewarding Harry with a rub of one cheek over his.

Harry shuddered. He was on the verge of feeling _too_ much, and he half-wanted to flinch away the way he would when someone tried to tickle him. But the desire in his chest continued to rise, and to urge him closer and closer. He had to have more, even as it was on the verge of becoming too much.

Draco finally gave it to him.

Harry wasn't entirely sure if that was deliberate; it almost seemed as if Draco lost his balance and so fell into the cradle of Harry's thighs. But suddenly their erections pressed together, and Harry arched his back, crying out, a flush of heat racing through him towards the soles of his feet. He thought his toes were actually curling. That was a ridiculous supposition to have at any other time, but he couldn't _help_ it. He couldn't help anything. He couldn't control what was happening to him.

He started to pause, the thought terrifying him, but Draco murmured a spell, and their clothes vanished. Then he added something else beneath his breath, and the desire grew worse and worse. Harry heard someone say, "_Please_," in a voice as deep as that of a Muggle who'd smoked all his life, and thought a third person was in the room with them for a moment before he realized it had to be him.

"Patience, Harry," Draco breathed, and the joy in his voice was dark and heavy, adding to the atmosphere of the room rather than cutting through it. He'd shifted so that their groins didn't touch any longer. "We only just took our clothes off. Don't you want to wait a bit?"

"No!" Harry managed to keep lying still, but it was a very near thing. "Please, Draco, _please_, touch me."

"I am touching you," Draco whispered.

"_More_ than this, damn it!"

"If you insist," Draco murmured, and lowered himself further, though he still had his hands braced so he wasn't lying fully on top of Harry. Their cocks brushed, naked skin to naked skin, and Harry threw his head back with an ecstatic cry. He wasn't surprised to feel sweat sliding over his face, or quivers racing through his body as if he'd run a mile. They hadn't done much in the way of athletic sex yet, that was true, but the effort of holding himself in check, of surrendering and letting Draco do what he wanted instead of taking control of the situation, was getting to him.

And then Draco began to talk, with only the faintest hint of excitement in his voice to show how affected _he_ was.

"Imagine, Harry, how long I could keep going like this, how many spells I could use. I know a spell that keeps people from orgasm; I've used that one when I want to exhaust my partner and make sure that he or she knows I'm in charge. I could do that. I could make you wait, and wait, and wait. I could make you renounce your job at the Ministry before I let you come."

Before this, if Draco had said such things, Harry would have laughed and denied that anything could make him do that. But now the thought of the ache in his body going unsatisfied until he did just that made him whimper.

"That's it," Draco whispered. "On the other hand, I could satisfy you, Harry. Just slowly, that's all. Imagine the realization of the dream you had when you first came here, hands touching you, finding all your sensitive spots, and you can't do anything about it." He paused a moment. "But, of course, you _can_ do something about it. You can raise your hands, grip me, and force me down. The only thing holding you back from that is your promise."

Harry realized he was uttering sharp, helpless cries. His legs scissored weakly across the bed, opening and shutting as if that would miraculously force Draco to stop his monologue and act. His head arched back, baring his throat. He wasn't helpless, he _couldn't_ be with his limbs free and the decision to move or not move all his own, but at the same time, he'd said he wouldn't.

He didn't want to move, not yet. The edge of pain or sharpness had melted back into pleasure. He was starting to enjoy the feeling of hovering on the edge of orgasm for its own sake.

The one thing he didn't want was for completion to _never_ come.

"Go on," he said, when he realized Draco had stopped speaking. His voice limped and staggered, never quite strong enough to manage a stammer. "What else would you do to me?"

* * *

Draco licked his lips. His mouth was thick and heavy, and it felt as if he should be drooling. He wasn't. The taste in his mouth was so sweet, that was all, it made his tongue numb and his head spin.

Harry was giving him everything he wanted, dropping the final barriers, letting Draco touch and grip things that no one else had ever even seen.

And now he wanted more.

Draco bowed his head and rolled his neck, so that the tips of his hair scraped Harry's nipples. Harry gave another one of those cries, so involved in sensation he couldn't be embarrassed.

"I'd ask you for more and more," Draco whispered. "I'd ask you to touch yourself, but not come. I'd ask you to hold yourself open for me and let me fuck you, but still not come. I'd ask you to do so much, Harry, but still hover on the very edge of what would give you the greatest pleasure- not because you wanted to, not because you were compelled to, but for no greater reason than that _I_ wished it, and you wanted to give me what I wanted."

Harry gave a soul-deep shiver compounded, Draco thought, of excitement and lust and nearly vicious pleasure. And Draco relented.

This was enough for a first exposure. Besides, his spells would increase their pace, and it wouldn't be long before Harry was actually in pain from his need. And his _own_ lust had mounted to the point where his words were slurring and the images in his head drizzled like wet paint.

Time to give them what they both wanted.

He didn't warn Harry. He simply dropped himself and let all his skin touch Harry's at once.

Harry's eyes blinked open, forest-green and nearly inhuman in their lust, and then his neck tilted back and he shouted one final time. Draco managed to keep his eyes focused even as orgasm seized him and dashed him down in spasms. His legs shook, his spine curled, his body jolted in harsh undignified motions. Beneath him, Harry shook as if he were being struck by lightning.

He'd never come so hard, so intensely, so satisfyingly. It took every effort to keep himself from just sprawling there, stuck to Harry with sweat and semen, and going to sleep.

Dragging on reserves of willpower he hadn't had to use for two years, since he first discovered Harry and restrained himself from pouncing on him at once, he picked up his wand and cast a cleaning spell. Harry was breathing so deeply that for a moment Draco thought he was already asleep. Then he realized his eyes were open, and staring at him, and that Harry was merely trying to recover from what they'd done.

"All right there?" Draco whispered.

Harry rolled his head nearer for an answer, and let his cheek rest against Draco's collarbone.

Draco closed his eyes, as he hadn't had to do throughout this teasing. The trust in the gesture spoke for itself, without words.

_Before, he was mine in a way that he could have belonged to other people, too. But this- this, no one else ever won, or ever would have, or ever will, now that he's given it to me._

Draco yawned, curled himself firmly but lightly about Harry, and went to sleep. He didn't see that he had any other choice at the moment


	46. Their Separate Courses

_Chapter 46- Their Separate Courses_

Harry rubbed water off his face, and then settled back in the chair with a sigh. This wasn't the pool that Draco had used to seduce him the first day he came to the Manor, but a close cousin of it, scented with violets instead of roses and lying in a corner of the extensive northern wing. Trippy had guided him to it when Harry asked, and had also brought him towels, shampoo, and soap. Harry had almost forgotten the conveniences of having house-elves. He didn't have one himself; that had started as a way of honoring Hermione's memory, but evolved, as so much in his life had, into a way of forgetting everything outside his work.

He had bathed, and slept, and eaten, and had extremely good sex with Draco.

He had to think. He couldn't put it off any longer.

He closed his eyes and rubbed his hair one final time. No matter how he patted at it, it wouldn't lie flat, and though Trippy had offered to bring him some oil she claimed would keep it down, Harry didn't see the point.

_So Snape hates me._

Harry snorted. That had been the least surprising thing he'd learned in Snape's garden, and not the one he needed to think about. He'd make an effort to get along with Snape for Draco's sake, but, in reality, he didn't care if the man hated him or not. Let him sneer and snarl. Harry would continue being a part of Draco's life regardless.

_As if you have a choice, after what you gave him yesterday. _

Harry shifted uneasily. He couldn't regret the absolute surrender, but that was at least partially because Draco hadn't given him a reason to regret it yet. He still could, and then Harry would be left feeling like a fool for making himself so weak, without the ability to build the walls around his heart back up again.

_Enough._

Optimism came no more easily to Harry than trust did, but the fact remained that not enough time had passed for him to decide if he'd made a mistake. Until more did, he was better off not thinking about how he'd surrendered to Draco, either.

And that left him with no shields between himself and what he'd most dreaded thinking about.

_Am I going back to the Ministry or not?_

Harry opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. That gave him no help, patterned as it was with diving schools of sunfish and swordfish but no secret instructions on how to get the Ministry off his back, or turn away from Auror work when he knew he could help their victims.

What Snape had said reverberated in his head. He might believe he was indispensable, but the Ministry would find someone to take his place eventually. No doubt, he wasn't as essential as he'd believed himself to be.

But of course Snape would say that. He hadn't _wanted_ to be Potions master at Hogwarts, and he hadn't enjoyed guiding and protecting his students for their own sake, as far as Harry knew, while Harry had chosen his career of his own free will. If the Weasleys and Hermione had lived, he would not have placed himself in emotional isolation, but he would still have chased Dark wizards. He couldn't imagine another path for his future.

_And that's the problem, isn't it? That if you give up being an Auror, it's not for something better, but for a great big blank._

* * *

Draco landed softly in front of the Muggle home on Privet Drive and spent some moments listening. This time, he heard no cracks that sounded like Apparition, and when he cast a detection spell, it revealed no magic but his own. Draco smirked and glided towards the door. The light of a new telly-vision came through the window, but he heard no voices from it; instead, the three Dursleys were talking in harsh, frightened tones.

"- don't _know_ what's wrong, Vernon!" the aunt said in a high-pitched, nasal voice that made Draco wince and feel sorrier for Harry than ever. _Imagine growing up listening to that!_ "That's always been the problem with these freaks. The authorities can't do anything about them, because they don't know about the- the _freakishness,_ and wouldn't believe us if we told them!"

"I don't want a freak breaking into my home like that and able to do whatever he likes," the uncle snorted, sounding like a bulldog. "If we can't go to the authorities, Petunia, I insist that we set traps."

"They can disarm them." There was a sniffle, and when Draco shifted his position, he could see Petunia wiping tears away. "You know that. Just one wave of a- a _wand_, and they can do whatever they like to us."

"But why are they doing it?" Harry's cousin moaned. Draco curled his lip as he realized the boy was eating. Of course, not even danger must keep him from filling his stomach. Draco stifled laughter at the vision of scaring Dudley out of his home and having the boy stop to grab a sandwich on the way. "I mean, we got rid of Harry a long time ago, and- "

"Do not say that name!" Vernon shouted, turning purple in the face.

_No wonder Dogfoot couldn't find a trace of psychic residue here, _Draco thought, twirling his wand between his fingers. He cast a glamour on himself and stood, moving towards the door. _They won't even say his name. They deny that there's a wizard living here, and so it's hard for magic to take notice._

"Your freakish cousin has nothing to do with this," Vernon was saying as Draco reached the front door.

_How very wrong you are, _Draco thought, and plastered a friendly smile on his face to knock the Muggles off-guard for the necessary few seconds until he could get inside.

* * *

_What else do you want to do?_

Harry had asked himself the question five minutes ago. So far, there still came no answer from the depths of his mind.

He snapped his eyes open and stood restlessly, reaching for the robes that Trippy had left beside the chair. He didn't know where Draco had gone, only that he'd said something about wanting to be alone, so he couldn't seek him out and talk to him. That left him at the mercy of his own mind, and his running thoughts, which continually tried to come up with something he was interested in besides catching Dark wizards, and found nothing.

_And I did want to do it, and I made a difference for so many people. They told me so. Maybe Snape made a difference for his Slytherin students, too, but he taught a lot more who never learned anything about potions. It was easy for him to walk away. It's not as easy for me._

Yet if he stayed, he would sink. Harry didn't think he was strong enough to resist the pressure of the Ministry forever. Show him one crying child, one grieving parent, he could make a difference for, and Harry would start running towards them. Draco could help steady him, but only if he stayed away from the Ministry entirely. And if he insisted on working, it was bound to lead to more arguments with Draco. Yet he couldn't imagine lying around the Manor forever, either, doing nothing more strenuous than attending dinner parties with people he disliked and playing Quidditch.

Harry wanted escape from the Ministry, and he didn't want it. He wanted to embrace a different life, but the life had to be there to embrace first.

Tentatively, a new suggestion crept into his mind and set up house. It was that he confess his problems to Draco and ask for help. Draco would be happy to search for something else he could do, and if his first suggestions weren't good enough, perhaps he would hit on something Harry liked and wanted to do eventually. He'd proven that he understood Harry well enough to heal him so far. Perhaps he would be the one who located the path Harry needed but didn't know about, the same way he'd been the only one to notice when Harry needed help.

Harry shoved the thought away, though. He didn't want to depend on Draco for everything. He'd done enough already. This was something Harry wanted to figure out for himself.

* * *

"Good evening," Draco said, when Vernon opened the door. He concealed his disgust at the sight of the rolling ripples of fat that traveled down the man's neck and chin and made him look like a walrus. "My name is Harold Jameson, and I have some information about the intruder into your house the other day."

His glamour was perfect, he knew, hiding his gray eyes behind brown ones, his blond hair behind dark strands touched with a few spots of gray, and sculpting his face so that it could look more innocent and helpful than it ever could in its natural state. Vernon stared at him anyway, his hand tightening on the door. "And just where are you from?" he demanded in a harsh whisper.

Draco smiled and held up his hand as if displaying identification. In fact, he showed his wand, which sparked with a blood-red light. Vernon's eyes went down and locked on it in horrified fascination.

"I have information," Draco repeated brightly, and said in a soft voice, "If you want your neighbors to see what happens next, by all means remain where you are, fat man."

Vernon's eyes darted frantically from side to side for a moment. Then he grunted and moved out of the way, though he was still trying to keep his body between Draco and his wife and son. Draco gave him a faint smile and followed him inside, shutting the door gently behind them.

"Who is it, Vernon?" Petunia shrilled, circling up behind him. She saw Draco's wand and shut up in an instant.

"This does concern Harry Potter," Draco said, and didn't bother keeping his voice low anymore. He heard Dudley squeal from the next room, and barely suppressed a snort. Then he realized the cupboard door was visible from where he stood, and his mood changed in a moment. Draco shook his head to calm himself. "I know what you did to him. Several people know, as a matter of fact."

"We never did _anything_ to him," Petunia hissed, since Vernon seemed too petrified to speak. "Except give him food too good for him to eat and a warm place to sleep- "

"Then I suppose mentions of a cupboard don't remind you of anything," Draco said, taking a step forward. They backed off two steps. "Or withholding food from him." Another step, and this time they scrambled away until their backs touched the wall. "Or insisting that he do chores endlessly, chores that you didn't require your son to share in. Or telling him lies about his parents."

"None of that is _abuse_- " Petunia began in a superior tone. Draco had the feeling she'd prepared a speech just in case anyone ever questioned her about this.

"Or letting your son beat him up," Draco said. "Or locking him in his room for incidents that weren't his fault." He had to fight to keep his wand from snapping in his hand. He wouldn't have cared about most of the things he listed if they happened to someone else, but this was _Harry_, and Harry _mattered_ to him.

"See here," said Vernon, apparently having recovered.

Draco snapped his wand out and murmured, "_Dirimo adflatus._"

Vernon stopped breathing. His eyes blinked for several seconds, began to water, and then bulged. His hands rose and clawed at his throat. As he fell, Petunia stooped over him, screaming. Draco rolled his eyes.

He released the spell. Vernon sucked in a great whooping lungful of air and began to cough. Draco waited until the sound had died, then cast a spell that turned Petunia's ears into the ears of a donkey. She cried out, but quickly slammed her mouth shut when she realized her voice had become a bray.

Dudley peered around the corner of the next room. Draco turned his legs to stone, purely as an academic exercise. Dudley didn't even whimper, just opened his mouth and began to blubber in silence, big fat tears rolling down cheeks that were more than a match for them.

Vernon had worked his way back to his feet. He stared from his wife to his son, and his face turned red.

"You see," Draco said quietly, letting his true, cold tones slice through the helpful voice of Harold Jameson, and snapping Vernon around to face him instantaneously, "there's no longer any reason for me to ignore what happened to Harry. And I can do anything to you. Anything at all." He cocked his head and smirked, then inflated Vernon with a twitch of his wand. He'd heard Harry's tale of accidentally using the Engorgement Charm on his aunt when he was thirteen; Draco didn't make Vernon quite as large as Harry had probably made Marge, but he bobbed near the ceiling, looking ready to either cry or shit his trousers.

"This is far from the end," Draco said, looking from one of them to the other. "I can do anything I like to you, any time at all. And this is the barest taste of what revenge I'm going to take for Harry. You're _helpless._ You don't know when I'll return, what I'll do. Just know that it's going to be worse next time." He could feel his smirk turning decidedly unpleasant, and didn't try to stop it. "Sweet dreams."

He Apparated away, and when he went, the magic ended. But he cast a curse as he vanished, so that all three Muggles would have violent nightmares any time they fell asleep, dreams that took the memories of his visit and distorted them into something even worse than they'd been.

Draco didn't intend to play with them much longer, really. He wanted to close in and show them just how _irritated_ he was at what they'd done to Harry. But for now, he was enjoying the tormenting, cat-like games.

Harry would never understand. That was all right. Draco could explain it to him when all this was over.

* * *

After some time spent cursing and muttering to himself, Harry came reluctantly to the only conclusion that made any sense.

Things had to change. He couldn't just go back to the Ministry and pretend he'd never left. For one thing, Madam Bones wasn't about to let him; for another, he couldn't summon that emotionless shell any more, so he couldn't do his work as efficiently as he used to.

But he didn't know what was next. He would walk away from the Ministry, but he had nothing to walk _to_, not yet.

That scared him senseless.

He would have to do it anyway.

Harry took a deep breath and opened his eyes. Since Draco had done so much for him already, and Harry didn't want to bother him with this- or perhaps he didn't want to give any more power over his future into Draco's hands- he would do the next most sensible thing, and talk to Theresa.


	47. Harry and Common Sense In a Room

_Chapter 47- Harry and Common Sense In a Room Together_

"I don't think we'll need many more sessions," Harry said, as he sat down opposite Theresa and tried to relax.

Theresa, who had just picked up her teacup, cocked an eyebrow at him. "You have said that before, as I remember, Harry," she said. "And things ended up changing within a few minutes."

"They did," Harry said, wincing at the memory. That session had come too soon after his experience at the Ministry. He had needed to rest more before he persuaded Theresa to leave. Luckily, he had a night of good food, excellent rest, and hard thinking under his belt this time.

"I'm thinking about not returning to the Ministry," he said now, and though her mouth and eyes both widened slightly, she'd evidently had a pleasant surprise.

"And what brought this on?" she asked quietly.

Harry shrugged. "A friend of Draco's, who gave up a life he thought he could never leave and devoted himself to something that mattered." He wasn't sure how much Theresa knew about Snape, and so he didn't want to mention the name. "We met him on Saturday. He didn't want to talk that much, but I learned- things from him. And I realized that, even though I don't know what I want to do next, I don't want to remain in the Ministry anymore. It will destroy me."

Theresa couldn't seem to stop smiling. "This is wonderful news, Harry," she said. "And you really are worried about your future fate as well as the fates of everyone around you?"

Harry nodded.

"Wonderful," Theresa repeated. Then she cocked her head and leaned towards him. "You mention that you don't know what you want to do next. That must take a great deal of courage, to walk away from what you've known without a safe and secure position waiting for you."

She didn't phrase it as a question, but Harry responded that way because he wasn't sure what else he ought to say. "Yes. It does. I trust Draco to support me until I find something I like."

"Any ideas so far?"

Harry had to smile. Theresa wouldn't be content until she saw him walk around with a dazzling smile on his face every day of the week, he thought. "No," he said quietly. "Professional Quidditch was a career I considered at one point in time, but I'm too old now, and in any case, I couldn't know whether the team hired me for my fame or my skill at Quidditch."

"And of course you don't want to go under a glamour," Theresa said thoughtfully. "Because you deserve to be recognized and honored for who you really are."

"Not more than other people, though," Harry cautioned her. That was something he was going to be adamant on. He'd finally accepted Draco's insistence that he deserved as much as anyone else. But he didn't think he deserved _more_, and if Draco tried to tell him to use his fame to win rights that other people didn't have or settle old scores, Harry would ignore him.

Theresa nodded. "Have you thought about giving the teams a chance, anyway?"

"What?"

"Try out under your real name, with your real skill," Theresa said. "Perhaps, if you're right, your age will offset your fame."

Harry shook his head. "I'd be more worried that 'Harry Potter' would force the teams into accepting me whether or not they wanted to. And I've had enough of being stared at and used for my reputation, thanks, so I don't want to be hired as an audience attraction."

Theresa tried and failed to smother a grin; Harry thought it came simply from the fact that she was proud of him. "What else do you want to do?"

"All I've ever done is chase Dark wizards." Harry shrugged, then tried and failed at a laugh. _All right, so there are still some things I can't do. _"Without that, it'll take me God knows how long to think of an alternate plan."

"What did you want to do when you were a child?"

Harry shook his head again. "I don't remember having ambitions. I think my world by the time I was five amounted to 'Live.' Survive the Dursleys. Someday I promised myself I'd move away and have a flat of my own. That's all."

"And you achieved that much," Theresa murmured. "You even managed survival, if not living. What else, Harry?"

Harry tilted his head back and tried to control his breathing. He wouldn't let himself panic, especially because Draco wasn't in the room next door- he'd left Harry's sessions with Theresa strictly alone for some time now- and couldn't hear him fumbling about with options and sounding like an idiot.

"I'm good at magic," he muttered at last. "And tracking spells, defensive charms, mild curses intended to disable enemies, that sort of thing."

"And what do you _want_ to do with that?" Theresa's voice tugged and coaxed and pulled at him.

"I thought we already established that I didn't know."

"You could train people who want to learn to defend themselves," Theresa suggested softly. "At least, if you enjoy teaching. Do you?"

"I don't _know_," Harry repeated, briefly resisting the urge to throw his hands in the air. "I've never done it."

But that wasn't strictly true, he thought at once, remembering Dumbledore's Army during his fifth year at Hogwarts. He tried to remember if he'd enjoyed it. Maybe. At the time, he'd been rather more consumed with his visions and his mood swings and the mess of his personal life than deciding on a career.

"And I still don't know if I would get serious students," he said now. "Some people might only come for the glamour of being trained by Harry Potter, and act like fools."

"Do you think you're a good judge of Auror candidates after so long in that job?"

Harry frowned, trying to cope with the rapid change of subject. "Of course."

"If the Ministry brought in someone incompetent, would you know at once?" Theresa punctuated the sentence with dainty sips of her tea.

Harry snorted. "I not only would know, I've found them out once or twice." When he could be persuaded to take notice- and it was spectacular incompetence that roused him from his work-daze, that or the fool being assigned as his partner- he'd been able to predict to the week, and sometimes the day, how long it would be before the idiot dropped out of the Auror program or got himself transferred to a less dangerous part of the Ministry.

"Then you would be able to recognize people who only came for the glamour, too, I think," Theresa whispered. "And you wouldn't need to worry about being too nice to discourage them, anymore."

"Maybe," Harry said. He gnawed his lip. He still didn't know if it was the kind of work he'd enjoy, though he felt a faint stirring of interest. "Private dueling instructor" was at least less of a catch-all job than "Auror," and he could make his own hours.

He _had_ to work, though. Already, he could feel the stirring of discontent in the center of his chest. How Draco spent so much time doing absolutely nothing, he would never know. Entertainments weren't enough to keep him occupied, and soon, sex with Draco wouldn't be enough, either. His own healing was almost through. Harry had to have something to think about beyond that.

"You do know one thing," Theresa said patiently.

Harry looked up.

"It's all right to wait until you have the ability to think some more about this," said Theresa. "About what you want, what you're going to do, what interests you most. Just because you don't _yet_ know what you want doesn't mean you'll never have any idea."

Harry felt relaxation trickle through his muscles. He'd come into the room telling himself that, but it felt better to hear someone else say it, too, so he knew he wasn't merely listening to the bad advice inside his own head.

"Whatever I want to do, I also want the ability to control my own hours," he muttered. "And the ability to help people. And the ability to pull back when I think I'm becoming so involved that the job consumes my life. And the ability to put my foot down if someone tries to use my name or face or reputation."

Theresa clapped her hands. "Those are all admirable goals, and ones that I didn't think you'd be able to name just a few weeks ago,' she said. "Keep them in mind, Harry. Since your interest doesn't instantly point you to something you want to do, it's worthwhile to wait and look for a job that _can_ give you those things, instead of grabbing the first opportunity that comes along."

Harry nodded, and leaned back in the chair, taking deep breaths. "How much longer do you think you'll need to be here?" he asked.

Her voice was amused, now. "Not much longer, if you're able to tell me the name of one person you'll seek out for a friend beyond Draco."

Names of Gryffindor year-mates, and people who weren't Gryffindors, rolled through Harry's mind. Most of the time, he had no idea whether those people were still alive or not, and he didn't want to cause unnecessary pain if he should begin asking after them. But he knew Dean Thomas was alive, and he knew one of the Patil twins- Padma, he thought- had come back to live in England after the rest of her family had left for India, and he'd even seen Cho Chang's name a time or two in passing, though he had no desire to seek her out again.

"I suppose- " he said, and then stopped, his heart pounding. The plan inside his head right now made sense, but it was so daring he hesitated to suggest it to himself.

"Yes?" Theresa prompted.

"I suppose I might go back to Hogwarts," Harry said, exhaling slowly and forcing his eyes open. "I'd have to ask for an appointment, but I want to see the school and McGonagall again. And anyone else who's still there, of course."

"You shouldn't do this if you're not ready for it," Theresa said. "From what you've told me, that school was the only place you were ever truly happy, and facing those memories- "

"I'm ready," Harry cut in firmly. He felt light-headed, but that was from a combination of excitement and fear, not fear alone. "None- none of them are buried there. I'll be walking with memories, not the dead."

_Except for Dumbledore. _But after hearing that the old wizard had arranged his death with Snape, Harry had no longer felt as haunted by his ghost as before. The pain still throbbed, but the Weasley Massacre had piled so much pain on top of that death as to effectively pull Harry's attention away from it.

"If you wish."

"I do." Harry looked up and into her eyes. "Whether or not I become someone who needs to go to Hogwarts on a regular basis, I want to stop running away from it."

Theresa nodded. "And what about beyond that?"

Harry sighed, and settled down to construct a list of names of people he might contact once he'd passed the strength-sapping visit to Hogwarts.

* * *

"No."

Harry rolled his eyes. Trust Draco to obstruct everything he wanted, from his job to this. Draco seemed to exist to be contrary.

"Draco, I have to," he said. "More than that, I _want_ to go back. These are places I've dreamed about so much in the last decade, and I could have seen them at any time, and I didn't. That speaks to a special kind of weakness. If I avoid Hogwarts for the rest of my life, then I'll be missing something important."

"You sound like Theresa." Draco, sitting in a chair with a wooden box on his lap, scowled at Harry.

"Maybe I do," Harry said. It was his private theory that people who spent enough time around Healers did end up sounding like them. "But this is important, Draco. I want it, and I'm going to do it."

Draco let out a long-suffering sigh and set the box on the table next to the chair, standing up. "Fine. But I'm coming with you."

Harry nodded his thanks, then glanced curiously at the box. He'd seen papers poking out of it, and Draco had been studying them with an intent frown on his face. "What are those?" he asked.

Draco's hand stuttered on his back for a moment. Then he said, "Nothing for you to worry about, Harry."

Harry nodded again. He felt more comfortable trusting Draco now, if only because he felt he'd passed the most important barriers and had little or nothing left to hold back from him.


	48. The First Tentative Steps

_Chapter 48- The First Tentative Steps_

"She said yes."

Draco rolled his eyes and did his best to concentrate on the food in front of him, toast smothered with marmalade and pancakes laden with strawberries, instead of looking at Harry. The tone of surprise in Harry's voice really _was_ almost too much. Had he really thought McGonagall would say no?

"Of course she did," he said, and swallowed a mouthful of warmth and sweetness. He felt a bit better as the two sensations trickled through his body from his mouth. He hated the very idea of Harry visiting Hogwarts right now- Harry still felt uncomfortable around strangers, so how would he react to the presence of places he'd once loved and the memories of friends who still haunted him?- but he had tried and failed to forbid it. He would go with Harry and do his best to catch the pieces when Harry shattered. "She probably _longs_ for you to come back, Harry. You were one of her favorite students, after all."

Harry gave him a very strange look as he laid the letter on the table and then handed a bit of bacon to the owl who hopped up and down near his wrist. "Of course I wasn't, Draco. Hermione was." A faint, wistful smile touched his face, but at least this time Draco could see no shadow of intense grief. "Hermione was nearly perfect at Transfiguration."

Draco raised an eyebrow as he sipped at his coffee. "You think she only valued students by how well they did in classes, Harry?"

"No." Harry pushed his glasses up his nose. "Just making the case that Hermione was probably her favorite student, and not me."

Draco gave a short nod. He could live with that, as long as Harry wasn't deriding himself or thinking of himself only in terms of ability again.

Really, he didn't know _why_ this itchy feeling crawled about under the skin of his chest, or why he wanted to tie Harry to his chair instead of letting him go to Hogwarts. Perhaps things had gone so perfectly so far that he believed a disastrous change was due, and disasters always seemed to happen to Harry at Hogwarts.

"It'll be all right, Draco."

Draco looked up. He hadn't realized his distress was visible. Harry leaned across the table and punched his shoulder, his smile sharp and sweet.

"I won't press myself too far, or intentionally stir up bad memories," Harry went on in a soothing voice. "And I understand that the visit will be hard on you, too. You don't _have_ to come, you know. You can stay here."

Draco blinked. "I wasn't thinking about myself," he said. "I was thinking about you."

Harry nodded, looking steadily at him all the while. "I know, and I appreciate it," he said. "But still. You never saw Dumbledore's tomb except in the pictures at the trial, did you? That, and other things, will be hard for you. You've done more than enough for me. If you want to stay here, I'll understand."

"I want to go with you."

Harry grinned, probably at the defensive tone in his voice. "That's perfectly fine," he said. "I just wanted to make sure." For a moment, he lifted his hand and slid his fingers along Draco's cheek. His face was wary and half-awed, both at once, as if he were confronting a magical creature he didn't understand.

Draco turned his head and tongued at Harry's fingers, wanting to get rid of this too-serious mood around them. He was the one who was supposed to be comforting the weakened and distraught Harry, not the other way around.

It wasn't that he didn't _enjoy_ the concern. But still. He was the one who had managed to live a normal life all these years, while Harry shut himself up in an emotionally isolated shell. That meant _he_ should be the one thinking of emotional dangers before they became apparent, and the one worrying. He wanted Harry to think about himself, not Draco.

Sometimes. Other times, he didn't.

_Being in love is confusing, _Draco decided, and the lack of shock he felt at his wording was the best suggestion he'd received so far that, yes, he was most definitely in love.

* * *

Harry didn't know what he expected when he Apparated to the edge of Hogwarts grounds. Perhaps a tingle from the wards. Perhaps a rush of sadness and tears, as he watched the towers of the castle rise in the distance for the first time in more than a decade, and heard the barking of a dog that could be Fang.

He didn't expect to feel this odd, tentative sensation squirming in the middle of his chest, as if he were home but someone had replaced the doors and widened the windows. He took a step forward and stopped.

"I'm right here," Draco whispered, squeezing his shoulder.

Harry rested against his support for a moment, because, since he'd given everything of himself over to Draco anyway, pretending he needed no help would be silly, and then straightened and walked firmly up the path.

The grounds looked brighter and quieter than they ever had when he went to school there; of course, he'd spent a good portion of his time at Hogwarts in mortal fear of his life or consumed with despair about classwork, so Harry supposed that wasn't a surprise. The white gleam of Dumbledore's tomb made him pause for a moment, then shake his head and walk on. _If Draco can bear it, so can I._

McGonagall met them near the entrance doors, and Harry had to pause again to study her face. She hadn't aged as much as he thought the cares of the last few years should have made her do. Of course, perhaps the quick ending of the war, in which Hogwarts was never directly attacked except for the Death Eaters' entrance, had something to do with that. She reached out, smiling, and caught one of his hands, shaking it firmly.

"Mr. Potter," she said. "Harry. Welcome, welcome home." She gave a loud sniff, and then turned and faced Draco. "Mr. Malfoy," she said, and Harry could make out nothing from the tone of her voice.

"Headmistress." Draco inclined his head, and his voice, too, was perfectly polite.

Harry rolled his eyes. He could taste the effort the courtesy took for both of them, and he saw no reason for it. "Do you hate Draco for what he did, Headmistress?" he asked, and McGonagall blinked at him as if she couldn't comprehend the question.

"I have been given to understand that there were- reasons," she said, and looked back at Draco, who met her eyes without flinching.

"Explanations," said Harry. "Very good ones, in fact. He was under an enormous amount of pressure that year." He stepped between Draco and McGonagall, bristling slightly. He heard Draco make a soft annoyed noise behind him, but he didn't care. He _couldn't_ just overrule his impulse to protect the people he cared about, however much Draco might hate it. "His parents would have _died_ if he didn't do what he said he would." He rested a hand on Draco's shoulder and glared at her. "And are you actually going to forbid him entrance to the school now?"

"No." McGonagall's eyebrows crept a bit more towards her hairline. "I have been given to understand that Mr. Malfoy was acquitted of all charges against him by the Wizengamot."

"That's right," said Harry, feeling an absurd surge of pride that money he'd donated had managed to help with Narcissa Malfoy's trial. "So he has a perfect right to walk here, and to have a neutral reception." He turned around and looked back at Draco, who was watching him with his mouth slightly open. "And you have a right to that as long as you don't mess it up," he said. "So, no sneering remarks about Gryffindors, _if_ you please."

Draco shut his mouth with a snap, and gave a nod, while his eyes shone with that same complicated emotion Harry had seen the day he talked about what he'd done during the war. "All right," he said softly.

"_Thank_ you," Harry said, and then spun and stalked into the school. Draco followed on his heels. McGonagall came after them, and Harry could practically feel her questions in her slow steps.

He didn't care.

He'd just stepped into the entrance hall at Hogwarts for the first time in years, and memories swirled around him thickly enough to stop his breath. He realized he'd come to a halt, and his vision flickered and dimmed. He coughed before Draco could hit him in the back, and went on looking.

God, how many times had he dashed through this hall with some ridiculous assignment in his arms, late to a class? He and Ron had passed through here on their way to visit Hagrid, having pointless arguments; it sounded stupid and soppy to say so, but Harry would have given anything for five minutes more of those arguments. Hermione had once carried so many books through the entrance hall during their sixth year that they'd cascaded around her in a perfect fan pattern; without missing a beat, she'd taken out her wand and enchanted them to follow behind her in a procession.

And this was only the entrance. Harry shuddered a little to think about what would happen when he saw the Great Hall or Gryffindor Tower.

"Are you all right?" Draco murmured into his ear. "We could go back to the Manor, if you'd rather."

Strangely enough, that was just the reminder Harry needed. Yes, the memories were thick, but they were _memories._ He had to remember that. Ron and Hermione and the rest of his family and friends were dead, and they weren't coming back, and he was here with someone he'd never thought he'd visit the school with.

"I'm fine," he said, and turned to look at McGonagall. "Can I look at the Great Hall, Headmistress? I assume the students are in class right now."

McGonagall nodded at him, the light glinting off her glasses. "They are, Harry. Please, do look."

Harry stepped forwards, and through the doors. And there was the enchanted ceiling, wheeling above him forever, perfectly enspelled to reflect the sunny sky outside. Harry stood there for long moments, feeling as if he were falling into blue. Then he looked down, and his gaze went to the Gryffindor table as if nailed there.

All those meals he'd rushed through, intent on getting to class, or because he was uncomfortable and intimidated by the stares around him. He wanted them _back_. He wished he could remember them better. He licked his lips, and told himself the smell of pancakes didn't really linger in the air, that he was imagining things, and that even if it did, those wouldn't be the same pancakes he and Ron had eaten; the same students didn't sit there now.

Draco's hand moved slowly back and forth along his spine, a warm weight. Harry wondered if he were gazing at the Slytherin table, but he couldn't turn and look.

Finally, he turned and nodded to McGonagall. "I'd like to see Gryffindor Tower."

* * *

Draco frowned. The memories didn't storm him the way they appeared to be doing to Harry, but they were unpleasant enough. He hadn't actually known Dumbledore's tomb would shine in the sunlight like that, a cheerful monument to the man he'd worked so hard to kill, and he could have lived without the reminder that once he'd sat just _there_ at the Slytherin table and shoveled food he didn't taste into his mouth, brooding on the possible death of his parents and the best way to get Death Eaters into the school and how Dumbledore kept escaping the best traps Draco could design for him.

He wanted to leave. He wanted to go home. He'd never had any urge to come back and confront Hogwarts. He'd worked through his memories on his own.

But now Harry was asking to see the Tower, and Draco wasn't about to let him go up there alone.

"Of course," McGonagall said softly, and drew a key from her sleeve. It wasn't his imagination, Draco thought; she really did soften around Harry, in a way that wasn't just the fawning so many people did on the Man Who'd Saved the Wizarding World. But she'd known him as a little boy and as his Head of House; Draco supposed that might make her fond of him while removing the misty glasses that covered the eyes of almost everyone else who looked at Harry. "There's a passage that goes up through the walls so that you can see the common room and the bedrooms without intruding and having to explain yourself to the students. Look for the door behind the statue of Hilda the Horrible on the sixth floor, and then you'll be turning to the right and watching for the holes in the wall that let you see."

Harry looked pathetically grateful as he took the key. Draco shook his head. He could have walked in like he owned the Tower, if he wanted. Most of the children in Gryffindor now wouldn't have met him. They'd have liked a visit from a real live hero, and Draco had seen just how well Harry worked with children in his cases as an Auror. Harry was being unnecessarily delicate.

But he said nothing as he followed Harry up the moving staircases, remembering just in time not to pass from one to the other without checking for sudden gaps and trick steps, and to the door. Let Harry do as he wanted. Draco supposed Harry _did_ have to learn to be part of the world again, and not just Draco's world of flattery and soft conversations and dinner parties.

If only the feeling in the center of his chest that insisted on disaster would go away.

The tunnel twisted sharply up and to the right once they were in it, but it was clean and free of dust. Draco couldn't resist. "Suppose McGonagall used this to watch her students wanking?" he whispered.

Harry gave him a disgusted look, and kept climbing. A few minutes later, he paused and touched the wall beside him with fingers that trembled. "This looks into the common room," he said.

Draco took his free hand as he leaned forward and peered through the hole. He watched for a long time. Finally, he stepped back and motioned that Draco could look in if he liked.

A great blaze of red and gold, and far too much orange for Draco's tastes, occupied the room. Students sat in front of the fire doing homework, or arguing over the proper pronunciation of spells, or playing Exploding Snap. One card tower collapsed as Draco watched, flinging sparks across the face of a red-haired student who could be a long-lost Weasley cousin. The other boy playing with him laughed and hooted, and Draco saw his dark hair.

_No wonder Harry pulled back so abruptly._ He touched Harry's shoulder soothingly again as Harry turned and climbed up the tunnel towards the higher regions, the twists of the passage paralleling the stairs to the bedrooms.

Harry counted stairs under his breath, then pressed his eye against the wall again.

* * *

It was _exactly_ the way he remembered it.

Logically, in the back of his mind, Harry knew that must be because there were five sixth-year Gryffindor boys, just the way there'd been him, and Neville, and Dean, and Seamus, and- Ron. It was a coincidence, and it was also a coincidence that one of them had his trunk open and his clothes scattered messily around the room the way that Seamus used to, and another had a broom propped casually against the bed that used to be Harry's. The curtains of all the beds were open, and fluttering in the breeze from the likewise open window. Someone lay reading on a bed, but not close enough for Harry to see his face or the title of the book, though he could hear his mutters as he turned from one page to another.

Harry waited for his throat to close up, for the tears to ache and slide along his face.

Instead, he felt a strange sensation swelling in the middle of him. He had to blink and hold still for a long time before he recognized the emotion.

Wonder. Peace. Contentment, almost, that things could change, and people could die, and life would still- go on. Perhaps that life wouldn't even be very different than it was for people who lived before the change and the deaths.

Voldemort had done his best to change the wizarding world into a nightmare. He hadn't succeeded. Intellectually, Harry had always known that, but working as an Auror, he'd seen plenty of things that could make him doubt it.

This-

This proved it.

Harry closed his eyes and leaned back into Draco's embrace. Warmth seeped through his stomach, chasing the last of the coldness away. Draco pressed a kiss to the back of his neck, and that only confirmed the change.

He'd done some good with his killing of Voldemort, permitting things like this.

There was still happiness and cheer in Hogwarts, and he could let himself see it and not be overwhelmed.

And people could die, and- well, Harry hated that and wished they hadn't died, but others could go on. And so could he. It wasn't betrayal that he'd survived, or that other people felt happy. And he could be happy, too, if he wanted, which was so simple and obvious a truth that he wondered how he'd ignored it for so long.

He turned around and smiled at Draco.

"Thank you," he said.

* * *

Draco saw that smile, and the soft shine of those green eyes, and felt as if someone had struck him in the solar plexus. He couldn't even bend over and wheeze at the shock. He stood frozen, staring at Harry.

If there had been doubt before, now there was none. The moment he saw that smile, he was gone.

He was fiercely, irrevocably, deeply in love with Harry.

The sensation of forthcoming disaster melted as he leaned forward, pressed his lips against Harry's, and murmured, "You're welcome." Everything would be all right, as long as he could maintain this moment, this feeling.

_And this time, I won't fuck it up._


	49. A Most Uncomfortable Dinner Party

_Chapter 49—A Most Uncomfortable Dinner Party_

Draco lowered the book and stared at Harry as if he were mad. Harry sniffed a bit. He didn't think his suggestion deserved _that_ extreme a reaction.

"Are you mad?" Draco demanded, confirming the judgment of his eyes.

Harry shrugged and slouched back in his chair. "Hardly. But since I'm not leaving—" He had to pause a moment to absorb the smile Draco gave him when he said that, but he rallied and went on. "And neither are your mum, and neither are Snape or any of your friends who might hate me, I think a dinner party like this would be a good idea. Take away the wands of everyone who comes. Set spells that will punish actual insults. It's what they did a few times at the Ministry when two different Departments or committees couldn't get along. Yes, it didn't always encourage _friendship_, but at least it made it possible for people to see that cooperation might exist between them. Someday," he added, when Draco's face lengthened. He had to admit he couldn't imagine cooperating with Snape in the near future.

"But if we invite Severus and my mother," Draco said, "and perhaps Blaise and his mother, that leaves you alone."

"I was going to ask Dean Thomas and Neville Longbottom, actually," Harry admitted. He'd easily obtained their addresses from McGonagall, since Dean had done some portraiture work for the school not long before and Neville had sent samples of his plants to Hogwarts's greenhouse. The Headmistress hadn't been able to find Seamus's address, but then, it seemed that few people had heard from him since the war.

"_Longbottom_?"

"He was in Gryffindor," said Harry. "My year."

"God, Harry, don't remind me." Draco dramatically threw his book to the floor. "The memory of his Potions mishaps still keeps me up nights. I shiver to think that incompetence like that exists in the world." He paused for a moment. "Besides, I never thought he was your close friend."

"My close friends are all gone, Malfoy," Harry snapped, before he could stop himself. Then he shook his head and took a deep breath. "Sorry."

"I rather like anger on you," Draco said, his voice deepening. "I think I've told you that before."

Harry rolled his eyes and ignored the blatant invitation to bed. Draco used sex as a distraction technique too often. "So. I want to invite Neville and Dean, and I want to have the people you care for in the same room, under the same conditions I named. Tell me why this is mad."

"They'll accept you sooner or later," Draco said confidently. "The people I care for, I mean. They have to know they won't be welcome in the Manor unless they can stop arguing with you."

"And will you accept other Gryffindors?"

Draco scowled and looked away.

"_None_ of us are what we were," Harry reminded him. "So Dean could have become a fascinating person, and Neville likewise. You won't know until you meet them."

"I don't like the thought of sharing you with anyone," Draco mumbled.

Harry smiled in spite of himself and the reply he knew he had to give. "And this is why Theresa thinks our relationship is unhealthy. It's not _normal _to want to share me with your friends but not mine, Draco."

Draco spent a few minutes staring at the far wall of the library, then gave an abrupt nod and stood. "You're right, Harry. Why don't you send the invitations to Thomas and Longbottom? I'll take care of the others."

"I was hoping you'd say that," Harry murmured. The thought of facing Snape by Floo or in person was impossible, and if he sent an invitation by owl, Snape would most likely ignore it or blast it with the Killing Curse. Multiple times, even.

The cynical thought, and the even more cynical ones of everything that could go wrong with a party like this, still couldn't dampen his enthusiasm.

_I may finally be adding more to Draco's life than I take away from it. _

* * *

Draco raised an eyebrow at Severus through the flames, something he knew his old friend particularly hated. He hadn't expected his student to pick up his old trick so quickly and easily, and had been irritated since the first time Draco tried it. "Yes, the invitation is real. Since Harry's here, and he's not leaving, he thought he might as well try to get along with you."

"You great fool," Severus said.

That wasn't the response Draco had expected; a tirade on the subject of Harry's intelligence would have been more like it. He raised the eyebrow further, purely for the pleasure of seeing Severus's face darken. "What?"

"You've fallen in love with him." Severus's voice and face were both _severely_ displeased. "You've given him the power to hurt you, to deprive you of everything you have, for—what? A pair of eyes? The _look_ in a pair of eyes? In all my time at Hogwarts, Mr. Malfoy, I only saw a few Slytherins act as greater idiots."

"You know nothing," Draco said coolly. From other people, this accusation might have made him fly into a rage, but he knew Severus too well. For one thing, he would only match cutting words with cutting words; for another, Severus had _always_ disapproved of his obsession with Harry, so this wasn't new; and for a third, he knew things about Severus that no one else did, things confessed during the terror of the War when they hid together. "You've never been in love yourself, you told me that, so why would you know what it looked like?"

Severus's lips thinned. "I will only attend this dinner party if you _beg_ me, Draco. And if you keep your mother seated between me and Potter."

Draco did the begging, in words of flattery he'd learned his first year at Hogwarts. Severus knew his students were buttering him up, and they knew he knew it, and in general everything worked out nicely. And Severus accepted the invitation as Draco had known he would, before vanishing abruptly from the fireplace to go back to the garden.

Draco sat back and shook soot out of his hair.

_And so what if I have fallen in love with Harry? Unless I'm greatly mistaken, he's on the verge of falling in love with me, and he's given me more power over him than I can ever trade to him. He's more vulnerable than I am. He has more points of weakness._

_Severus is being paranoid._

* * *

Harry waited in front of the Manor. Narcissa, Blaise, and Mrs. Zabini had all accepted their invitations, and even Dean and Neville had returned polite if puzzled answers. Draco had assigned him the task of greeting the guests—except for Snape, who could come in through a private Floo connection and who would have regarded Harry's greeting him with the same delight that he would being Transfigured into a newt—while he supervised the house-elves in their preparation of the dinner.

Narcissa was the first to appear, landing in front of him without a sound, but with the same faint smile she'd displayed when she came to visit the other day. Harry kissed her hand, but made sure that nothing but common politeness showed in his eyes. He wasn't about to look as if he were falling over himself in gratitude, not when that might seem like a weakness to her.

"I see you are not leaving, Mr. Potter," she said. "Neither the Manor nor Draco's life."

Harry returned her gaze full-on. It really wasn't any harder than meeting Madam Bones's glare. "That's true."

Narcissa nodded, a sharp motion like a wading bird thrusting its beak into the water. "Then we should _speak_, Mr. Potter. There are too many things I have to say to you. A few days from now?"

Harry slowly let out his breath. He was sure Draco would want to check the offer for traps, but at least Narcissa was making the effort, and Harry wouldn't deprive Draco of his family. "I look forward to it, ma'am."

She curtsied to him and passed inside, just as Neville Apparated into the garden in a whoosh of noise. Harry grinned slightly as he walked over to greet him. Neville was powerful, of course, but he'd never won much control over his magic.

Neville was and was not the boy Harry remembered from the last months of the war, unexpectedly aged by an attack the Lestranges had made on his home that nearly cost his grandmother her life. He had lost the fat that made him chunky as a teenager and turned into a _solid_ man, someone you could brace yourself on, Harry thought, as they shook hands. Dirt was crusted under his fingernails. Neville noticed it a moment after Harry did and rubbed his hands self-consciously.

"I should have cleaned up better…"

Harry shook his head and focused his accidental magic to cast a simple cleaning spell. "That's fine, Neville. I'm glad you came." And he was. He couldn't banish that slight grin from his face, and it had grown into a full-fledged smile. He turned around when he heard another crack, and raised his voice. "And you, too, Dean!"

"_Harry_?"

The incredulity in the tone just made Harry smile more. If Dean had ever seen him during his work as an Auror, then he must be wondering about the cause of the change. He nodded and walked over to shake Dean's hand in turn. Dean had grown tall enough that Harry didn't think he would recognize him without his voice. Of course, the glasses perched on his nose contributed to that feeling, too. He had evidently done more cleaning charms than Neville, since his hands were free of paint.

"I can't believe that you're living in the Manor with _Malfoy_, of all people," said Dean, when the handshake and the initial assessment were over.

"Or that you have his permission to invite people to dinner parties," Neville suggested, behind him.

Harry laughed. The sound was rusty, but it flowed easily enough from his lips. "It was—well, it was complicated. And there's a lot that I don't want to talk about yet. But he woke up me from a living nightmare, one I should have awakened myself from earlier." He gave his shoulders a brisk shake. He really _didn't_ want to talk about it. "What have you been doing?"

"Painting," said Dean, at the same moment as Neville said, "Gardening." They paused and looked at each other for a moment, and then Neville tried to stammer an apology at the same moment as Dean gave one. And then they both smiled, and for a moment Harry felt as if he stood in sunlight.

"I'm married," Dean added softly. "I don't suppose you remember Susan Bones?"

Harry blinked. "Of course I do. Congratulations, Dean."

Dean inclined his head modestly. "Thank you. We're expecting our first daughter in the spring."

Harry turned to Neville. "And what are you doing?"

Neville looked down shyly. Harry thought he was probably more self-confident than this, usually—the lines around his mouth and eyes were mostly laugh lines—but being in the presence of someone he hadn't seen in eleven years, and in front of Malfoy Manor, probably affected him. "Keeping the greenhouses," he said. "And—well, caring for my grandmother." He glanced up, and sadness had softened his features. "She was never really the same after the Lestrange attack, but she isn't quite dead yet."

Harry briefly let his hand brush Neville's, then looked up as Blaise and Mrs. Zabini Apparated in. "I have just two more guests to greet, and then we can go inside," he said. "Wait for me a moment?"

Neville nodded, but Dean called after him as he jogged off. "What _are _you and Malfoy, Harry? Friends?"

Harry hesitated for a split second, then replied, "Lovers." He didn't turn to watch their faces. He would deal with the repercussions of that announcement later.

* * *

Draco had arranged matters very carefully. That was, he had given intricate instructions to the house-elves and made sure they carried them through to the letter.

Severus sat next to Draco on his left. Harry was at his right. Draco, of course, had the place of honor at the head of the table. He had thought of doing exactly what Severus asked and separating him and Harry with Narcissa, but he had not been able to pass up the temptation to let everyone at the dinner party see exactly where Harry belonged. They weren't _rivals_ for Harry's affection, but they should _know_ what place Harry held in his life, just in case anyone disagreed or thought Draco would grow bored and drop Harry in a few days.

Dean Thomas sat on Severus's other hand, since Draco didn't remember his being incompetent in potions. Neville was beyond him, then Gloriana Zabini at the bottom of the table. Narcissa was on Harry's right, next to Blaise. Draco hoped the positioning of the table would give his mother a bit to think about.

Blaise had accompanied his mother back home after a bit of shouting, of course. Draco made sure to catch his friend's eye when he and Gloriana entered the room and raise his eyebrows. Blaise turned away with a grimace on the edge of discomfort and looked around for a drink. Draco had instructed the house-elves not to give him anything. He wouldn't have his own dinner party interrupted with a scene, thank you.

Severus stood scowling in a corner of the room and said nothing to anyone until Narcissa entered, at which point he stalked over to speak with her. Narcissa nodded calmly, but her face was so expressionless Draco couldn't tell what she thought, if anything.

Dean Thomas struck up a quiet conversation with Blaise, and Longbottom with Gloriana. Harry stepped through them and up to Draco. Draco felt his muscles relax from a cramped position he hadn't known he held. With Harry next to him, he felt much more confident about the success of this party.

"They seem to be getting along well, so far," Harry said.

Draco snorted and motioned with his head towards Severus, who was glaring at Longbottom for all he was worth. "Only so far, Harry."

"Thank you for letting me invite them," Harry murmured, taking no notice of this.

"The Manor is your home, as well, Harry," Draco said firmly. "You should be able to invite whom you desire. You know that."

Harry gave him a sidelong look that blossomed into a true smile, and he squeezed Draco's arm. "Thank you."

Then he was gone, walking over to Longbottom and Gloriana and saying something that made them both laugh. Draco shuddered. He hoped Blaise would come over and speak to him—that would be better than his mother—but, surprisingly enough, it was Dean Thomas who did.

"Malfoy." His intent brown eyes were not hostile, but assessing, wary, as if he were about to paint Draco's portrait before his execution and needed to know what light he looked best in.

"Thomas," Draco said, and accepted his hand without a flinch. He saw Thomas's eyebrows rise, and supposed he won points for that. Thomas was Muggleborn. He might have expected screaming insults and a flash of Draco's Dark Mark. Draco kept his private eyeroll to himself. Such gestures did nothing. He'd learned that before the end of his sixth year, or, at the latest, the moment Dumbledore fell from the Tower.

"I'd like to ask you a question, if you don't mind," Thomas said.

"Of course." Draco kept his voice and face both blank and polite.

"Why _did_ you decide to become Harry's lover?"

Draco checked himself from a startled reaction with haste. So Harry had told him, then, since he wouldn't have known _what_ to believe from the _Daily Prophet._ He studied Thomas carefully, but could see only genuine curiosity and interest. He supposed he wouldn't be the recipient of a "if you hurt Harry" speech, then. If he had been, he would have laughed in Thomas's face. Harry's Gryffindor friends had lost the right to say that kind of thing to him when they left Harry completely on his own after the war.

"Because I care a great deal about him," said Draco. "Because no one else was taking care of him. Because of many other reasons that I doubt you would understand unless you've had male lovers yourself, Thomas."

That made the other man flinch, a bit, but his eyes were still steady. "At least you sound like it's real to you," he said, "not a game."

Draco waved a hand at the people around them, half of them staring suspiciously at the other half. "This would be a bit much for a game, don't you think?"

"I don't know." Thomas had a casual, easy shrug, though Draco found he preferred Harry's utterly open mannerisms. "I've never been able to tell what's real to people like you and what isn't."

Draco settled for a scowl. _If I didn't love you, Harry, I never would have agreed to this._

* * *

It wasn't perfect. It was very far from perfect. There was a short, vicious conversation with Snape that made Harry wince when he recalled it. Gloriana Zabini and Narcissa conversed together for a while, and then Narcissa laughed in a soft way Harry didn't like at all. Neville stuttered and stared at his own feet for most of dinner, or sat in utter silence. Dean kept studying Draco as if he wondered what Draco's secret evil plans were. Blaise searched in desperation for alcohol, a search that became more and more obvious as the meal went on.

But it didn't collapse or become a disaster, and that was because of Draco.

Draco appeared in between Harry and Snape and drew Snape away when things would have become heated, with a question that demanded the Potions master's expertise in a non-obvious way. Draco made a joke that distracted Harry from worrying about what his mother and Mrs. Zabini might be planning. He led Neville, as if naturally, into talking about Herbology for the last few minutes of dinner. He ignored Dean's stare entirely. He demanded that Blaise tell stories and jokes at just the moments when his antics with the house-elves could have been embarrassing otherwise.

He was amazing. Harry found he could hardly take his eyes off him, and that didn't have anything to do with the way he looked; in fact, Draco had chosen casual robes for the meal, as if to protest the idea of dressing up in front of either his old friends or Harry's. His face hadn't changed, either, or acquired any sudden glow of beauty. What made it remarkable was the alertness shining through him, the way he caught and anticipated problems and turned them aside, when Harry could easily picture the Draco of a decade ago letting them happen for spite and entertainment.

He might not care for Dean or Neville, but he was making an effort, because Harry wanted them to be his friends. He wanted this to succeed for Harry's sake, and not his own. In fact, it involved a lot of inconvenience and possibly jealousy for him, since he seemed reluctant to give up Harry's company for a second.

Draco, as if feeling his gaze, looked up once, and saluted him with a wry smile and a toast from his wineglass.

It was ridiculous to think of the flourish of someone's wrist as unlocking a secret, but there he was. Harry thought that way, and suddenly he was in a brighter, more dangerous, more mysterious world.

_I'm in love with him, I think._

It was very strange, and he nearly blurted it out to Narcissa when she asked him to pass the salt. Harry blinked, and shook his head a little, and looked back at Draco.

Draco was still smiling at him.

It was real.

This time, Harry didn't try to keep himself from smiling back.


	50. Mouse, Cat, and Lion

_Chapter 50—Mouse, Cat, and Lion_

Draco turned and looked down at Harry, who was lying in a corner of the bed in his room, mouth slightly open as he snored. Harry's hair looked as disheveled as if mice had been playing in it, and tangled across the pillow. His lips still bore a trace of the ferocious kissing they'd endured the night before.

Draco ignored the temptation to climb back in beside him, wake him, and show him, once again, exactly how much he mattered. They'd done that quite a bit last night, and Harry needed his rest.

He turned back to the window that gave an enchanted view of the gardens, and sipped at the cup of ice water Trippy had brought him with a faint smile on his face.

Besides, it had been several days since he'd cast the nightmare curse on the Dursleys. It would have started to fade. Draco needed to return to Privet Drive and show them _exactly_ how many of those nightmares would be coming true, and how many would lead to something even worse.

* * *

Harry opened his eyes slowly. A flood of sunlight lay on his face, and he thought that was the only thing that had awakened him. His muscles stayed relaxed puddles of warm mush, and he could have lain there for hours more.

Except for one thing: Draco wasn't in the bed.

Harry raised himself on one elbow and stared curiously around the room. Almost at once, air rushed together in the middle, and Trippy stood before him, with a low bow. She held a tray of food in one large hand and a letter in the other.

"Master Draco's compliments, Master Harry, but he had to run an errand," she squeaked now. "He left this breakfast for you. And Mistress Narcissa is outside the gates." She extended the letter. "She sent this letter for you."

Harry tried to pick up the envelope, but Trippy retracted her hand and proffered the breakfast instead. "Master Harry is to be eating up, first," she said sternly.

Harry looked over the tray. He noticed the usual pancakes, eggs, and strawberries that he and Draco tended to eat in the mornings, but among them were several cakes of grain, apples from the orchard, and pieces of bacon. He shook his head in amusement. Apparently Draco thought he needed to keep his strength up.

_And he's right, isn't he?_

Thoughtfully, Harry picked up an apple and bit into it, running the fruit around in his mouth before he swallowed. Last night, they'd had sex several times, but Harry had done more exhausting things as an Auror. It wasn't the physical exertion that he needed to save his strength for.

The emotional, though—

Last night was the first time Harry would have said that he and Draco made love instead of fucked.

He knew the cause of that on his part. But the overwhelming tenderness in Draco's eyes, which never left even when his face twisted in pleasure, made Harry wonder if there was something about Draco he didn't know.

He started eating. He was determined not to rush through the breakfast. Yes, he didn't want to keep Narcissa waiting, but it would do no good for her to demand an audience and think she could get one any time she wanted, either.

* * *

Draco concealed his arrival at the home, but not his entrance. When he examined the Muggles' front door, he found several thick locks. He snorted and whispered _Alohomora_ a few times. They all opened with faint clicks.

The door swung inwards, and Draco heard a brief, frantic scramble, which reminded him of cornered rats. His mouth lifted in an expression somewhere between a sneer and a snarl. _You might think you can escape, but I'm blocking the only exit_.

A roar and a bang sounded, and Draco felt the discharge from some Muggle weapon pass him closely enough to make his robes riffle. He clucked his tongue, and looked up to see Harry's uncle aiming the weapon at him again. A gun, Draco knew, from tales his mother told.

He briskly swept his wand in a circle, thinking the incantation for the Disintegrating Curse, and the gun tore itself apart into sparks of steel, then fragments of air, then nothing. Vernon backed away from him, sweating and breathing heavily. Next to him stood Petunia, carrying, absurdly enough, a skillet. Dudley was trying to hide behind his parents.

"Is that the best you can do?" Draco asked.

"You have no _right_." Vernon spoke more calmly than he had the other day, as if he thought intensity, and not volume, would make Draco leave him alone. "We haven't done anything to you and the other freaks. So what if Potter lived here once? We don't know where he is. We haven't seen him for more than ten years—"

"Didn't you listen?" Draco whispered, stepping inside and kicking the door shut behind him. "Stupid Muggles. I can only be thankful that Harry didn't inherit your stupidity in any form. I know exactly where Harry is. I've come to take revenge for his abuse, not torture you for information on his whereabouts."

"We didn't _abuse _him," said Petunia, and fought her way forward again, though she lowered the skillet when Draco stared at her. "If he told you that we beat him or did—things—to him, he's lying."

"It was emotional abuse," Draco said softly, "and verbal abuse, and neglect. I think that's quite enough. It made him close himself off for decades, and it's still affecting him. And, as a matter of fact, no, he didn't talk willingly about it. He did his very best to make it sound as if it were nothing at all. But he's _mine_ now—" he was not about to tell Harry's Muggle family that he was in love with Harry before he got to tell Harry himself "—and I can see how deep the scars went. That's what you'll be paying for, not anything you've done since."

"It's wasn't abuse," Petunia repeated. "So we didn't treat him exactly like our son. Well, he _wasn't_."

Draco had had enough. He Body-Bound them so they couldn't interfere or run, and then turned to Harry's uncle. He was the one screaming about freaks, and probably the one who would have intimidated Harry most, accounting for sheer size. And now he had almost hurt Draco. The torture would start with him.

Draco cast a mild pain curse—at least, the Ministry accounted it mild. It would make Vernon feel as if someone were slowly, slowly pulling the toenails out of his feet. Draco watched with academic interest as his face turned green.

Then it was Petunia's turn, and, since she denied she'd abused Harry, Draco thought she should feel exactly what starvation was like. Her face turned pale, too, as the curse struck her, and she gave a low whining sound.

Dudley had beat Harry up, Draco knew, and chased him, and tried to keep him from having friends. Draco used a spell of his own devising, one which alternated the fear of pursuit with invisible fists that struck bruises. Dudley stood there, shivering, longing to get away and not able to, whimpering when a fist caught him in the corner of his mouth and his cheek, and then wailing when they went to work on his back.

Draco twirled his wand between his fingers and watched, with a smile.

* * *

Harry checked Narcissa's letter several times for spells, even though Trippy was ready to iron her ears at the mere thought of letting a dangerous envelope pass into a master's hands. Finally, satisfied that she had meant to send a simple letter and not hurt him, he slit open the seal.

The letter was simple and to the point, though Harry frowned over it.

_Dear Mr. Potter:_

_I assume that you wish to stay with and love my son for the rest of your life. The light I saw in your eyes at the dinner party the other night certainly seemed to suggest so. And I know that Draco has often spoken of his desire to spend his life with you._

_What you may not know is that Draco, himself, can endanger those chances. He has played you false about something very important, and he is edging nearer and nearer to an investigation by the Ministry, or, perhaps, an Azkaban sentence. I do not wish to see that happen, but, should I interfere, my son would simply accuse me of trying to mold him to my own wishes again._

_I have set my own house-elf, Breezy, to watch him. If you would summon Breezy, simply speak her name aloud. She can tell you the details of what Draco has been doing. She wears a charm that ensures she speaks the truth._

_Yours in our mutual love for my son,_

_Narcissa Malfoy._

Slowly, Harry lowered the letter and shook his head. He couldn't imagine what Draco was doing that could merit an Azkaban sentence, and decided that Narcissa had probably been exaggerating, again, in an attempt to worm her way back into Draco's life.

On the other hand, could summoning Breezy cause trouble? Even if the house-elf tried to hurt him, he had Trippy with him to help.

He raised his voice and called, "Breezy!"

At once a house-elf smaller than Trippy appeared with a _crack_. She was wringing her hands, and she looked at him and squeaked desperately, "Master Potter is to come quickly! Master Malfoy is torturing the Muggles!"

Harry was on his feet before he quite knew what he was doing, and his wand was in his hand. He cast a spell that would detect magic, and the amulet hanging around Breezy's neck brightened and began to glow white. The spell told him that it indeed made sure she was speaking the truth.

"What Muggles?" he whispered, even as his stomach began to churn and he thought he knew. "Who are they, Breezy?"

"The Muggles who live in Surrey, Master Harry Potter, sir!" Breezy mourned. "Master Harry Potter's family."

Harry Apparated without a thought.

* * *

Draco had moved on to the second round of spells by now. Vernon was experiencing exactly what it meant to be pressed to death, enormous weights crushing his lungs and chest. Petunia struggled against the pain of her bones being broken one by one. Dudley had fainted from the application of slight pain, so Draco had cursed him to bad dreams instead of peaceful unconsciousness. All their faces were flushed red, marked with tears and snot.

"Have you learned?" he asked, and then paused. Petunia stared at him hopefully for a moment, then moaned as Draco shook his head. "I don't think so, not yet," he murmured.

Magic rushed past him. The Muggle house rose from its foundations, quaking, then settled back with a boom that made the pictures on the walls vibrate and the cutlery in the kitchen fall with a crash. Draco whirled, wondering if the Aurors could really have sensed the magic being used in front of Muggles and come to confront him.

"_DRACO!_"

No. Worse. _Harry_ had found out what he was doing, and come to confront him.

And here he came, through the front door as if it wasn't even there, his hair billowing around him, his eyes bright and fierce and burnished green. His wand was clutched in his hand, but he didn't exactly need it, Draco knew. His magic was roaring all around him. It could kill Draco if Harry wanted it to.

Draco took a step backwards in spite of himself.

Then he realized Harry wasn't looking at him, but at the Muggles, taking in their bruises and their wounds and their stricken expressions. His own face went so pale that Draco could see the vivid line of the scar on his forehead in contrast. He closed his eyes and whispered a few spells, making passes with his wand so rapid that his wrist looked like a blur.

Draco felt his curses and the Body-Binds dissipate. More of Harry's magic caught the Dursleys before they could slump to the ground, and leaned them against the wall. A moment later, Harry was healing those of their wounds he could heal, still ignoring Draco completely.

Draco took a step back and eyed him warily. He wasn't sure what would happen, or, for that matter, how Harry had found out.

Then he recalled those cracks he'd heard the time he Apparated to the Dursleys' house and back, and closed his eyes in self-loathing. Of course. It had probably been Breezy. The detection spells he used would have picked up any trace of wizarding Apparition, but house-elf magic was fundamentally different. He had never even thought that Narcissa would do without Breezy for any length of time, much less the length it would take to find out who the Dursleys were and spy on him, but it seemed she would.

Harry put his relatives to sleep, and then turned and looked at Draco. Draco could see him trying as hard as he could to shove anger and disappointment and hurt behind emotional shields, but Draco had shredded those enough that Harry couldn't do it any more.

"You did this," Harry whispered.

Hurt had become most prominent, it seemed. Draco moved a step forward. Harry backed away from him, a wary eye on his hands, as if he thought that Draco would cast pain curses on him next. Draco felt as if his liver had tugged itself away from the rest of his body and fallen into small chunks inside his chest. He had trouble breathing.

"It was for you," he whispered. "Harry, you were abused. And you would never have taken vengeance. You told me that. But they had to pay—"

"So you thought you could make up for their hurting someone defenseless by hurting people who were defenseless compared to you?" Harry's voice was horrified and raw. The air around Draco danced like a heat shimmer, as Harry's magic reacted to his trembling emotions.

"It was revenge. Payment." Draco wondered why he didn't sound more convincing. He'd been very convinced of his own righteousness five minutes ago. "They _abused_ you, Harry."

"It wasn't that bad!"

A surge of anger returned to bear Draco up. He moved closer to Harry again, who seemed too preoccupied with staring at him this time to notice. "It was," he said. "I don't care if they didn't leave physical scars, Harry. They left emotional ones. You _know_ how deep they run, because you're the one who's lived your life."

"I made it through," Harry said, lowering his head. His eyes had gone so dark it hurt Draco to look into them. "So that means it wasn't that bad, nothing compared to what other people suffer. At least I didn't _die_. And I left them on my seventeenth birthday and I was done with them forever, Draco. How could you—what right did you have to dig up my past like this? _None_."

"You did suffer," Draco argued. "And no one else was going to do it, just like no one else was going to help you when you were an Auror, Harry. This is what they deserve, the pain and fear they inflicted on you."

Harry put a hand over his eyes. "Draco," he said, "_no_. You can't make up for pain by causing pain. You can't torture someone because they tortured someone else. It—it doesn't work that way. All it does is taint you with their crime, too."

"Didn't you kill the Dark Lord out of vengeance?"

Harry gave a massive, whole-body flinch, and Draco realized he must have touched a buried nerve, Harry's fear that he would become like Voldemort.

Then Harry dropped his hand from his eyes, fixed his gaze on Draco, and said, in quiet tones, "Arguably, yes. But I never did anything like that again. I worked with the worst criminals and still managed to get them whole through trial and to prison, even when I had to protect them from my own partners. I never lost myself again, Draco, because I promised myself I wouldn't."

"I never made a promise like that," said Draco, feeling angry and embarrassed and half-defensive, a mixture of emotions he hadn't experienced since trying to explain to Severus why he could _too_ help the Death Eaters in battle.

"But you still tortured them," Harry whispered. "And lied to me while you were at it, but that's the smaller part, compared to the fact that they suffered."

"And _so did you!_" Draco scrambled for some kind of relief like a climber about to fall off a cliff.

"But that's over and done with." Harry stared at the Dursleys for a moment. "They'll have new and traumatic memories. Unless—" He paused, and then abruptly cast _Rennervate_ on all the Dursleys. Vernon and Petunia awoke, but lay still, too petrified to move. Dudley started blubbering again on seeing Harry.

Draco felt Harry's magic gather. He pointed his wand at a spot between all three Muggles, and whispered, "_Obliviate._"

Their faces smoothed into passive expressions. Draco thought Harry would grab his arm and storm from the house, but instead he jerked his head, and Draco followed him out the front door.

_He isn't touching me. He doesn't want to touch me. _Draco had that confirmed when he tried to take Harry's shoulder, and Harry ducked away from his hand without even looking at him.

"I shouldn't have done that, not if I wanted to remain true to my principles," Harry said, his eyes on the ground. "But there you are. I can't stand to see someone I'm in love with taken to Azkaban."

Draco tried to swallow, but both spit and breath were gone from this throat. "You're in love with me?" he asked, while his mind said, _Hell of a way to find out._

"Yes." And Harry gave a laugh that frightened Draco. "No idea what I want to do in the future, now that I'm not going back to be an Auror, but I told myself that was all right, that I could wait and you'd support me while I searched for another path. And now I find out that I'm in love with you, but I can't trust you, and you have to inflict pain for past hurts that are done with and paved over, and I can't retreat behind my walls again, and—" He took a breath that sounded as if it were brushing through broken glass in his throat. "Everything's a mess," he whispered. "I should have suspected it would be. Nothing in my life goes right. My luck's not that good."

Draco reached for him again. The moment his arm brushed Harry's robe, though, Harry leaned away. "Don't you touch me," he hissed.

"I'm in love with you, too," Draco told him. "Harry—I meant what I said about not letting you go—"

"Stop me leaving, then," Harry snapped at him, and Apparated.

And Draco had not the least idea where he'd gone.


	51. Three Heartbeats

_Chapter 51—Three Heartbeats_

Draco glanced swiftly around the flat where Harry had lived before he took him to the Manor. It was a small place, and he knew every inch of it from long nights of spying on Harry as he ate and slept, or weekends when he spent his time writing reports and studying evidence. And he knew, now, that Harry was not here.

_Damn it._

Draco could feel the anger and the panic rising up to lash at him like cold winds. He forced them back down, brutally. If he panicked, then he _would_ deserve the scorn that Harry had heaped on him at the Muggles' house. He wouldn't get the chance to explain, or, if he found Harry while he was still in this state, his explanation would be a mess. He had to calm down, and think about where Harry would have gone.

The Ministry? Draco doubted it. Harry would have had to give too many explanations, and it wasn't as though he could bury himself in work again and return without a splash or commotion.

But if not his flat and not the Ministry—

For years, Harry had circled back and forth between those two places. If he hadn't gone there, Draco didn't know where he would have gone.

And then he wanted to smack himself in the forehead. _The Manor, idiot. He might have gone there, if only to take his anger out on the walls or gather up some clothes before he leaves. He did say that he considers it home._

Draco took one more look around the small, bare flat—he still couldn't believe Harry had lived in this mess of grays and browns for so long, or walked over this scratchy carpet—and then Apparated.

* * *

Harry stood in silence on the small hill, staring at the mound in front of him. He was sure that dozens of people could have passed this spot every day and seen nothing worthy of their attention. The mound itself might look unnatural if it was cleared off, but grass had swarmed across and buried it. There were even a few scattered, hardy wildflowers growing on it, something Harry would have said was impossible the last time he'd seen it. No, this place was nothing special to anyone any more.

Except him.

Harry carefully navigated his way down the hill, though he thought he could have found his way in his sleep, and, anyway, it wasn't as if the ground were muddy or treacherous. There was no reason to be so careful.

He halted again in front of the grass and flower-covered mound, and stared down at it.

It was the remains of the Burrow.

If he concentrated, the sounds of Ottery St. Catchpole would drift to him—the voices of people going about their business, defiantly living, as though no one had ever died under the sunshine and the clouds. After what he'd learned at Hogwarts earlier that week, Harry couldn't even blame them.

He sat down in front of the mound. He had thought he would clear it off when he first came here, but there wasn't a need for that. He found he liked the way it looked, in fact. This was right. Covered-over death, healed wounds that scar tissue had made look almost like normal skin. Draco had inflicted new ones on him, rather than tearing open old ones, though he had done his _very_ best with that.

"I wish you were still alive," he told Ron and Hermione, whose bodies were part of the dust and ash that formed the mound, pulverized by Voldemort's spell. They had headstones, but no one had been able to extricate those bodies from the pancake the Burrow had become. Harry could smell the burning still. "I'd have someone else to talk to about what Draco just did, and why it was so horrible. Theresa was right. Depending on Draco that much was—a mistake."

He closed his eyes, and listened in silence to the swarm of insects in the deep grass. He didn't know what kind they were. That was all right. He didn't want to know.

Once, he had stood next to Voldemort's remains and, for three heartbeats, longed to die. Now he went through three heartbeats when he allowed himself to feel self-pity and wrenching grief. He'd begun to rebuild his life, finally, in the wake of his family's loss, and now it was gone again.

Then he brought himself back to reality, down again. He should have expected this, shouldn't he? At least Draco had taught him to heal and shown him some important truths. But that he should show him love, happiness, peace that would last? Harry shook his head slightly. He couldn't depend on anyone else to secure that for him. He would have to take the lessons and move on, without Draco's company.

In some ways, of course, it was worse, because he was in love this time, and he'd lost the emotionless shell that had saved his sanity before when he surrendered to Draco. But he would get used to it. He had to. He would survive. It was what he did.

But, for another three heartbeats, and then another, and then another, he stayed by the silent mound of the Burrow and pretended that it didn't have to be that way, that he had a life where Ron and Hermione were alive, and Ginny, and the other Weasleys, and where he'd never heard of Draco Malfoy since Hogwarts.

* * *

"Trippy!"

The house-elf appeared the moment Draco called for her, and squeaked at the look on his face. "Master Draco is wanting something?'

"Where's Harry?" Draco demanded.

Trippy's eyes grew impossibly wide. "He went to find Master Draco, sir!"

Draco cursed. It hadn't occurred to him that Harry might not have come back to the Manor, either—but now that appeared as foolish a notion as the one that he'd gone to his flat in the first place. What was in the Manor that Harry wanted? Draco had kidnapped him without whatever beloved possessions he might have, and he wouldn't think to take the robes or other presents that Draco had gifted him with. In his eyes, they weren't really his.

_If only I could understand him well enough to know where he's gone, as well as what he won't do!_ Draco ran a hand through his hair in distraction.

Giving up on finding Harry was not an option. Draco had meant what he said. He wasn't going to let Harry go without a fight. Apologies were hard for him, and so was atonement, but he would do anything rather than step tamely aside and pretend that Harry could just walk away from him without a word.

"But Mistress Malfoy is here, sir," Trippy went on, censure in her every word. "Trippy told her that Master Draco and Master Harry were both gone, but she would not be dismissed."

Draco narrowed his eyes. "Let her in." It was just barely possible that Narcissa had seen Harry and would let some hint of where he'd gone slip in through her gloating.

He paced back and forth while Trippy went to obey him, cursing under his breath. What Gloriana Zabini had been trying to warn him about was perfectly clear now. Narcissa had either confessed or hinted about the plan to her, and Gloriana had tried to tell Draco what she could without betraying a friend's confidence. Calm Harry down, keep him from exploding, balancing between a beautiful woman and a brash young man—yes, Draco knew what it all meant.

But too late, of course, too late.

"He is gone, then?"

Draco snapped his head up. His mother stood in the entrance to the library, and the sweet, faint smile that had fooled Harry couldn't fool _him_. He clenched one hand and said, "As you knew he would go."

Narcissa had the gall to arch an eyebrow at him, even to cluck her tongue. "My son, you should have known he would go, as well. He too clearly didn't want anyone disturbing his past and taking revenge on his Muggle relatives. I could see that, when I studied his record as an Auror. Never an incident of becoming violent with a criminal, even several of protecting them from those who would have administered 'justice' without the Wizengamot. Is _this_ the man you expected to stand tamely by while you tortured Muggles? The man you told me you knew so well?"

Draco snarled under his breath. "I want to know why you felt the need to interfere in my happiness, Mother. I'm in love with him, as I have no doubt that you know by now."

And Narcissa stiffened, and Draco realized she hadn't known _that._ An ashy gratitude flickered to life inside him. At least there were some levels on which she hadn't managed to outwit him.

She attempted to cover for it, of course. "You knew that I wanted you to marry a woman and give me grandchildren, Draco," she murmured. "You should have expected this move before any other."

"I'm in love with him," Draco repeated, taking a step forward. "And I won't sit in a corner and look at my hands because he's angry with me. I'll track him down and _force_ him to confront me. I'm good at that. You've hurt us both, Mother. Rejoice. But you haven't killed us, and you never will. Feel glad of that, too, if you can find it in your cold heart to do so."

"_You_ are the one who has made mistakes, and not me," Narcissa hissed at him, with that full viciousness she so rarely unveiled. "You should have known Potter better than this. You should never have started on this ill-advised vengeance, or this equally ill-advised affair, in the first place. His place was in the Ministry, Draco, and your place is standing as a pure-blood wizard."

"I don't believe that," Draco said calmly. "I haven't for a long time."

Her face went white as marble with the shock.

"It may take me some time," Draco said. "It will cost me some effort. But never doubt it, Mother. I _will_ have Harry here and at my side in the end. It's where he belongs." He stepped around her, giving instructions to Trippy to escort her out, and strode down the hall with his head held high.

When he was sure his mother couldn't see him, his lips thinned into a line.

In one thing, she was right.

_I did make a horrible mistake._

He decided that he might as well look at Harry's flat again. Wherever Harry might have gone to be alone with his anger, that was the only place of refuge open to him, if he didn't come to the Manor. And Draco _was_ confident that Harry wouldn't impinge on the hospitality of the Longbottoms or Dean Thomas so soon after reestablishing contact with them.

* * *

Harry looked around his flat with a critical eye. It _was_ an ugly, barren little place, confined and making him itch to be flying, and he suspected he'd put up with it so long only because he never really noticed it in the world of his casework. But it was his, and he owed it to no one else.

The thick wards he'd established around the place the moment he returned twanged. Harry snapped his head around to face the door, and he could feel his eyes narrowing.

The wards said it was Draco.

Harry's first impulse was simply not to answer the door. _I have nothing to say to him._

But then he shook his head. He was a fool for doing it, but he'd fallen in love with the git. The thought of him being there made some of the ice in Harry's chest thaw, even though that was _ridiculous._ Harry owed him at least the dignity of an interview.

_And may the bastard's jaw hang open when he hears that I have no intention of crawling back to him._

He opened the door, and didn't mistake the look of relief in Draco's eyes in the moment before he tried to step forward. _What did he think I was going to do? Apparate to the top of a building and throw myself off?_

"I need to talk to you, Harry," Draco said quietly.

"There's nothing to talk about." Harry cocked his head, and the anger rose again. "After all, I saw what you did."

"I want to explain." Draco reached out towards him, and looked quite unnerved when a ward stretched across the doorway repelled his hand. Harry had to stifle laughter at the way he shook his wrist. "And apologize. It was wrong of me, I know that now. But I wanted you to understand why I did it in the first place." His voice was low and intent, and his eyes searched Harry's face.

Harry took a deep breath, more shaken than he'd expected to be. Of course, he had thought Draco would show up shouting and storming and denying that he'd done anything wrong and demanding that Harry return to the Manor immediately. This was—unexpected.

_He's in love with me too, he said._

But what kind of person would Harry be if he gave up his principles for a low voice and sweet words? His resolve firmed again. He'd kept his principles intact for eleven years, the things he believed in as right and wrong, and the only reason he'd changed _anything_ was that he'd come to agree with Draco about the negative consequences of some of his behavior. That didn't mean he was wrong to believe in justice, instead of revenge, or that Muggles had a right to be left alone and not tortured by wizards. And he wouldn't throw those values over just to embrace Draco the moment he tried to walk back into his life.

"Nothing you can say will be enough," he told Draco.

Draco looked as if he'd slapped him. "But I remember what you said," he argued, as if that should mean something.

Harry shrugged and leaned against the doorway. "And what I said was true. What you said, too, I suppose." He bit his lip to keep the bitter laughter away. That they should find out right now, of all times, and what should have been a joyous moment turned into _this_, instead!

But that was his life, and he'd been an idiot to think he could have anything different. His time with Draco was a dream from which he'd awakened at last.

"People who love each other don't just _give up_ on each other," Draco said.

"You _tortured_ people, Draco!" The words ripped themselves out of Harry's throat. _God, why doesn't he _understand? "I feel the way I would have if I found out that you'd just tried to kill someone who'd never done you any harm. Apologies can't make up for that. What you did was _wrong._"

Draco lifted his chin. "But you still love me."

"Goddamn you, _yes_." Harry narrowed his eyes again, and felt the walls around them began to vibrate with the pressure of his magic. Draco didn't seem to notice. "And you can laugh at me all you like. Go away."

He started to shut the door, but Draco lifted his hand. Wary that he might be about to break through the wards, Harry stiffened, but Draco just held the hand in the air outside the ward, a few inches from Harry's cheek. Harry stared at him, and met pure determination in his eyes.

"If this is as close as I can come to touching you for the next little while," Draco said quietly, "then that's all right. I'll make it up, Harry. I'll do what I can to apologize. We're both in love with each other. There's no way under the sun I'll let you go. I don't care how long it takes or how hard my penance is. This is what I've been wanting, for years." He leaned forward until his face was at the same distance his hand was, clear, bright eyes searching Harry's. "This is what I'm willing to fight for."

He turned and walked down the hall, each step laden with dignity.

Harry shut the door. His hand was shaking. He turned and leaned against the door, closing his eyes.

He was afraid not that Draco would give up, but that Draco would convince him, and succeed.


	52. A Normal Life

_Chapter 52—A Normal Life_

Harry hesitated for a long moment. It was the first time he'd been to Quality Quidditch Supplies in eleven years, and the first time he'd been to _any_ shop in Diagon Alley when he wasn't coming on official Auror business. He did most of his shopping in other parts of wizarding London, where people had slowly grown used to him and mostly paid no attention now.

But there was no shop that sold as many fine new brooms as Quality Quidditch Supplies did.

And he wanted a new broom. He'd burned his Firebolt the night Voldemort died, along with the Invisibility Cloak.

He gave himself a stern shake, reached out, and laid a hand on the door. He _could_ do this. In fact, he intended to do this. Draco's betrayal wouldn't break him, because Harry wouldn't let it. He would _live_. He would show that he could apply the lessons he'd learned outside Malfoy Manor. To do otherwise would give the victory to—well, not to Draco, maybe, but at least his own dependence on Draco.

He stepped in and didn't immediately see the owner. Brooms crowded the walls, and the odor of polish made Harry wrinkle his nose. He touched the bag of Galleons on his belt, a good portion of his Gringotts account, and called, "Hello?"

"Just a moment, just a moment," a grumbling voice answered him. Harry smiled slightly and turned to examine the brooms. A Flameflare caught his eye, but he shook his head to dispel those fantasies. He didn't have enough money to afford one. He probably didn't have enough to afford a Firebolt, unless their prices had changed drastically in the last decade. A Nimbus would be enough.

The shopkeeper strode out at last, and stood looking at him. He was a heavyset man with brown eyes that squinted as if he were peering down a bristle at a broom's broken tail, and his face was marked with the lines of sun and wind. His eyes widened, though, when he caught sight of the scar on Harry's forehead.

Harry felt his shoulders tighten. He pushed the incipient fear away. Yes, he had known what would happen when he went shopping in Diagon Alley without a glamour. That didn't _matter_. He couldn't control the way other people reacted to him. He could only control what _he_ did.

"Harry Potter," the owner breathed, without, at least, the sound of adoration in his voice. "Never thought I'd see the day."

Harry coughed under his breath and nodded to the Nimbus 2002 he'd just been examining. "I'd like to buy this one."

The shopkeeper shook his head, and seemed to snap out of whatever trance had just afflicted him. "I heard about your Quidditch skill, back when you were still at Hogwarts," he said. "That isn't the best broom for a Seeker."

"I know," Harry said. _The Flameflare is_. But he would not allow himself to think about the Manor and what he missed there besides Draco. He had lived a simple life for long enough, and he could get used to it again. "But I don't plan to play Quidditch, just to fly." He gave a smile he hoped would be convincing.

The shopkeeper surveyed him for a moment more in silence. Harry wondered if the Nimbus cost more than he'd thought.

"I have a broom in the back that a new broom-maker just sent me," the shopkeeper said abruptly. "Gorlois Amberridge is his name, and someday, he'll compete well with the big broom-makers, so he will. He's calling this one the Comet-Chaser. It'll just suit you, I think." He turned as if he would fetch it.

"Thank you, no." Harry made his voice firm, and didn't waver even when the other man turned back and eyed him incredulously. "I'd like to buy this Nimbus." He took the broom from the wall and laid it on the counter.

"But you deserve a better broom than that," the man objected.

"I want to buy this one, though." Harry leaned forward and fixed his most stubborn look on the shopkeeper, the one that usually made even Draco throw his hands up in disgust. Slowly, one eye on Harry as if he would change his mind at any second, the shopkeeper sold him the broom.

"Thank you," Harry said, and left with his new broom over one shoulder. Perhaps stares followed him. He didn't turn to look. He had just as much right to be in Diagon Alley of a Sunday morning as anyone else, and he didn't need to go under a glamour, or change his behavior for anyone else's comfort.

* * *

Draco carefully set his quill against the parchment, and thought for a few moments. What he was about to do wasn't something he'd ever done before. Oh, he'd written flattering letters to lovers scorned, to encourage them to return for one more quick shag or stop spreading rumors about him, but those meant nothing; he could lie in them or use pretty phrases they'd never call him on as easily as he breathed. This, the letter he was about to write to Harry, meant something else.

_Dearest Harry_, he wrote, and then sighed and waved his wand to banish the words. No, Harry would only take that as sarcasm.

He knew what he needed to say.

He just didn't think he could control the way that Harry would react to those words, as he'd always done with his lovers in the past.

_So don't control it, _the voice of his conscience said. Normally, Draco couldn't hear it speak through all the clutter in his mind, but there it was, and it didn't seem inclined to shut up any time soon. So he listened. _Give him the choice to reject the letter, if that's what he wants, and even to misinterpret it and see things that aren't there. In the end, you know you can't confine him. What you want is his surrender. If he comes back to you of his own free will, he won't leave, but if he feels coerced or harassed, then you know he'll probably flee again the moment his principles overpower his lust._

Draco tapped his fingers on the parchment and frowned at nothing. What his conscience suggested sounded dangerously close to playing fair, which he'd never done in his life.

On the other hand—

Well, if he won this gamble, he'd win all, and a far greater prize than a Harry lured back to his side for a few nights of lovemaking. Besides, that kind of Harry would ultimately turn away from him more firmly than the Harry of the moment was doing. He just thought they were done with and Draco would stop pursuing him. If he came back and _then_ decided to stick to his principles, he would actively fight the pursuit.

And Draco wanted Harry to come home forever, when he came home.

_Listen to yourself. Do you know what a sop you're being?_

Draco shrugged. He didn't think he could stop being soppy, because this was different from any other situation he'd ever been in. He wanted Harry with a patient, slow-burning determination that was as far from mere stubbornness as the obsession he'd developed for Harry two years ago had been from a passing fancy.

He leaned over the parchment and wrote.

* * *

Harry carefully studied the Quidditch Pitch before him, then nodded. He'd had to study a map of wizarding London to find the nearest one, and ignore the sadness in the back of his mind, that he'd lived close to one for years and didn't know it. But he was here now, and since it was still early, relatively few wizards or witches crowded it. Besides, they were all darting around after practice Quaffles or Snitches. Harry intended to fly above them, not participate in a game.

He kicked off from the western side of the Pitch, and had to close his eyes as the wind ran sharp-nailed fingers through his hair. God, he'd _missed_ flying.

He circled higher, then higher, and higher still, getting used to the feel of the new broom between his legs. The Quidditch Pitch danced below him, a solitary spot of green in the midst of rising gray and brown roofs. Harry tested the broom's speed at starts and stops a few times, and decided he was ready.

He let the restraints go.

There was no need to race Draco here, or pace him, or make sure he caught the Snitch before Draco did. Harry could fly as he liked, and follow the patterns in his head. Arms and legs clasped close around the Nimbus, he fell straight down, then turned so sharply to the side he nearly wrenched his shoulder.

His stomach jumped. His breakfast threatened to come up his throat. The wind now felt as if it would tear his hair from his skull.

Harry had to choke back a whoop of exultation.

He twisted again, and dropped promptly into a roll. He closed his eyes, so that he was sensing and holding himself mostly with his muscles, and then snapped one arm straight out, enough to somewhat halt the roll and change his progress. Up he rose again, blinking as the wind stung tears from his eyes, and then he threw himself _forward._

The Nimbus rolled with him, the handle dipping in front of him, the bristles lifting behind, and for a moment he somersaulted hard enough to drive the breath from himself. He was up in a few moments, however, turning neatly out of the flipping and tumbling into a circle. He heard someone shout, but if that person was shouting at him, they didn't need to worry; Harry wouldn't crash. Besides, they probably weren't shouting at him. He flew higher, and higher still, and didn't worry about it.

When he was high enough that his lungs labored to breathe and a faintness intruded like mist into his mind, he hung upside-down from the broom and studied the Pitch below. By now, it looked like a stamp of green, no larger, and he couldn't see most of the wizards and witches circling on brooms, except for a few of the highest.

Casually, he began to pass himself back and forth across the Nimbus, leaving himself dangling by two limbs, rolling over, and hooking the other pair back around. His heart pounded in his throat, but he was conscious mostly of the concentration he had to put into the effort, not the fear he half-felt. Then he decided enough was enough, and he curled a single limb around the handle, his right arm, and dangled there.

The Nimbus gave little bucks and shudders, but continued to support him. Harry smiled. A hard gust of wind could tear him away and send him sprawling to the ground below, and even with his uncanny luck, he knew there was no way to survive that.

He did not care. He still felt calm and absolutely at home.

At last, he swung himself back around and onto the Nimbus, and started to descend. Two figures appeared on brooms flying rapidly towards him, and Harry stiffened. He wondered if he'd broken some rule of the Quidditch Pitch, and they were about to tell him he couldn't fly here anymore.

Then he reminded himself that, even if that was the case, it wasn't the end of the world. He'd find another place to fly, just as he could find friends after Ron and Hermione, another Healer than Theresa, another job than the Aurors.

_Another lover after Draco?_

Harry shook his head briskly, so as to get rid of the thought, and pulled up, hovering in front of the two people. One was a witch with frizzled blonde hair and a permanently worried look on her face, but the man, who looked enough like the shopkeeper from that morning to be a brother, flew slightly in front of her, so Harry addressed him. "Yes, sir? Is something wrong?"

The man examined him intently for a moment, and then his face relaxed into a hearty smile. "My name's John Bancroft," he said. "And I came up to talk to you about the display of stunt flying you just did, young man." His eyes flicked up as the wind tossed Harry's fringe aside, and he added, "Or should I say, Mr. Potter?"

"I'm Harry Potter, yes," said Harry, and ignored a squeak from the witch. "And I wasn't stunt flying, Mr. Bancroft. I was—flying." He shrugged. He didn't know how to explain it any better than that. He hadn't thought he'd have to explain it, unless it had broken rules of some kind.

Bancroft's smile only widened. "Even better!" he exclaimed. "Part of the problem we've had is flyers who get too impressed with themselves, and start demanding things we can't give them. If you love flying for its own sake, that's less likely to happen."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Harry said, as gently as he could. Bancroft's manner reminded him somewhat of Draco's in the first few days after he came to the Manor, just assuming he would comply, and it made Harry bristle.

And then a silver peg of loss stuck in the middle of his soul, and Harry found it hard to draw breath. _I miss him. God, I _miss _him_.

Harry ignored the emotion as Bancroft laughed and held out a card in his direction. "Of course, sorry," he said. "Sometimes I think everyone knows us by now, but of course that wouldn't be the case for a busy Auror."

Harry whispered a quick spell under his breath, so that the card would blow in his direction, and read the names printed on it. SYLVAN & BANCROFT EXHIBITIONS: THE BEST OF BOTH WIZARDS AND BROOMS.

"We help in testing new brooms," Bancroft explained. "And in coming up with new tricks that wizards can perform, and which the new brooms should be capable of. Stunt flying, mostly, as I said. We're holding an exhibition a few days from now. On the Quidditch Pitch at Hogwarts, as a matter of fact. Two of our best flyers were injured in the last one. Would you like to appear, Mr. Potter? You'd be compensated for your time, of course."

Harry hesitated for a long moment. Then he said, "All right." The man seemed to have judged him on his skill at flying, not his name or face. Even if the owner of Quality Quidditch Supplies had told him Harry Potter had come to the shop that morning, Harry had been too high for Bancroft to be certain the stunt flyer was him, or even on a Nimbus.

"Excellent!" Bancroft then spent a moment eyeing his broom. "Are you sure that you wouldn't like a new broom to practice on? Some of the Flameflares are quite—"

"I'm attached to my Nimbus, thank you," Harry said frostily.

The look on his face must have been intimidating, because the witch squeaked again, but Bancroft just put up a hand, smiling. "Of course. Well, then, shall we see you at one-o'clock on Wednesday at Hogwarts, Mr. Potter? Please let us know if you can't come, since we'll have to change the schedule." He gave Harry a nod, and then curved towards the ground. The witch followed him, with one last nervous glance at Harry.

Harry bit his lip thoughtfully, and swooped towards the edge of the Quidditch Pitch, where an Apparition point waited. He did need money, and why not? It wasn't as though he had to do this forever, if it didn't work.

He didn't have to do _anything_ forever.

Except, it seemed, miss Draco.

_It has to be over and done with, _Harry told himself again, as he landed gently and stretched out the aches in his arms. _What would happen if I forgave him? I could never know whether it was actually the right thing or whether I'd only done it because I love him. And that's intolerable. I can't—I can't be a party to evil like that._

He resolved to go home, and eat a pleasant meal, and not think about it anymore.

* * *

Of course, his life wasn't destined to be that easy. Two owls were waiting for him when he got home. One had an envelope with the Ministry seal on it. Harry refused to look at it, despite the barn owl's dancing

The other, a regal-looking eagle-owl, bore a letter from Draco. Harry recognized his handwriting by now, and there was his name on the outside. He hesitated for a long moment, staring at it, then roughly pulled it open. Doubtless, it would be full of remonstrance and self-pity and self-justification, and Harry would be right in not reading further than the first few lines

It wasn't like that at all.

_Dear Harry:_

_I said that I wanted you to know why I tortured the Dursleys. This letter has the reasons. Please do me the courtesy of reading it through. If you don't want to reply to it at the end, then I'll understand._

_I would normally never have paid attention to the Dursleys. What Muggles do is of no concern to me, unless they somehow find their way into the wizarding world, and what you suffered didn't matter to me, at one point in time. But then I found out how much they shaped you into the person you were, the one capable of shutting yourself off from the world for a decade, and I hated them._

_So, yes, Harry, this wasn't some grand moral indignation that made me pursue them. I did it because they hurt _you_, and I care about _you_, not about random people in the wizarding world whose Muggle relatives might have abused them. And they made you into the kind of man I had to work at to get what I wanted. If you weren't that way, you and I could have become friends and lovers much more easily. And you wouldn't have hurt so much._

_I also distrusted the way you talked to Theresa about your childhood. You seemed intent on making it sound as gentle as possible, but it couldn't have been gentle, to affect you that way. So, instead of asking you about it in more detail, as I probably should have, I just assumed it was horrible, and started plotting my revenge._

_I asked an Auror who'd been sacked to track your relatives down, and then I went to their house several times. I frightened them at first, then used mild curses on them that I reversed, and finally advanced to—what you saw._

_I'm sorry, Harry._

Harry had to look away from the parchment for a moment, and close his eyes. Then he looked back, because the letter actually seemed to have a damn compulsion on it that kept pulling at him to read.

_I'm sorry that I didn't simply speak to you about my suspicions instead of acting on them. I'm sorry I distrusted you when you were making every effort to tell the truth to Theresa as you saw it. I'm sorry that I hurt people you obviously still think are worthy of being left alone, even though I disagree. I'm sorry I went behind your back and implied that your principles meant nothing to me. That's not true at all._

_I don't pretend that this will be an easy reconciliation, Harry. But I want to reconcile. I love you. I'm in love with you. And if mere obsession was enough to make me snatch you from your old life and keep you in the Manor against your will, imagine what my love is enough to make me do._

_And now I know you're in love with me. There's no way I can just give that up. Other people fell out of your life through no fault of their own, Harry, like your parents and your friends, or they never cared enough to get to know you in the first place, like your relatives and Severus. But I won't leave. I don't intend to leave. I don't want another lover. I don't want to let us drift into some misguided silence because you don't trust me and I can't make enough of an effort to show you how much I trust you and admit my mistakes._

_So, as a first step, I'm apologizing. Please respond to this. _

_Love,_

_Draco._

Harry's hand shook again, and he lowered the parchment with a hiss. The eagle-owl blinked at him and hopped impatiently back and forth on the table.

Harry took off his glasses and wiped at his face. The loss had redoubled itself, and he wanted, frantically, to speak with Draco, to see him.

_But how can I know that's the right thing to do?_

After long moments of thinking, he decided he _couldn't_ know. He just wanted to do it, and yell at Draco instead of talking to him by letter.

Or—maybe do something other than yell. Harry glanced at the letter again. He had to admit he hadn't ever expected Draco to apologize.

This meant—

He didn't know what it meant, yet. He thought he'd have to see Draco, for that.

_But there will most definitely be no touching, _he thought, as he picked up his cloak and the letter. _And no grand gestures allowed to substitute for actually being sorry, either._

"No need to wait for a reply," he told the eagle-owl. "I'm coming to the Manor."

The barn owl from the Ministry hooted piteously at him. Harry removed the letter from its leg and put it on the table. "No reply," he told it.

The owl flew out his window in a huff. Harry walked out the door with the eagle-owl skimming triumphantly above his head. Maybe this was a horrible mistake, he told himself as he walked towards his Apparition point.

But maybe it wasn't. He couldn't quite dim the hope that surged up in his heart, though he would have thought he'd learned how to do that by now.


	53. Nothing So Simple

_Chapter 53—Nothing So Simple_

Harry Apparated onto the grounds of Malfoy Manor, and waited a moment. He didn't know what to expect. Perhaps Draco would fling open the doors when he saw Harry waiting there, or perhaps Trippy would come to fetch him, or—

What happened, in fact, was the wards parting in front of him with absolute silence.

Harry gave himself a shake. _So he wants to do this the subtle way. Or maybe he thinks that this way there won't be noise._

Too bad for Draco. Harry was, in fact, in the mood to make a great deal of noise.

He paused a moment to cast a few specific spells on himself, both as precautions, and then stepped through the wards. They shut again behind him with a little sighing sound, and he walked up the curving gravel path to the front doors and opened them himself. No house-elves appeared.

In fact, Harry thought as he made his way through the Manor, carefully looking into each room he passed, he'd never seen the house this deserted. The chatter of elves might not be audible, most of the time, but their magic was almost always in the background as a humming presence. Harry would have expected them to be preparing dinner or cleaning even if they had received orders to stay strictly out of his way.

But no, there was no sign of them. Perhaps Draco had sent them out of the Manor specifically to have time alone with Harry.

That was an odd feeling.

Harry finally found Draco in the library. He sat in one chair in front of the fireplace, and a second was drawn up in front of him invitingly. He was reading, but looked up the moment he heard Harry's footsteps. Harry found himself pinned by the same intense look he'd received at his front door.

"Harry," Draco murmured. "Thank you for coming."

After a moment's consideration about whether he wanted to shout at Draco from the library entrance or closer, Harry decided that closer was better. He made his way carefully across the carpet, and made a point of casting several detection charms on the chair before he sat down, checking for spells that would make him feel unwonted desire, or control him, or throw him unexpectedly into Draco's lap.

"You think I'd do that?" Draco asked his back.

"You're Slytherin, and you want me, and regardless of what you think, I'm not here to make up with you yet," Harry said flatly, sitting down. "Of course you would."

Draco gave him a warm smile. "You're learning, Harry. Good." He carefully marked his place in the large book with a scrap of silk, and then leaned back in his chair with his hands behind his head. His intense gaze remained the same. Harry scowled at him, and waited for him to get on with it.

"You read my letter," Draco said. "You know I'm sorry."

"That apology was more graceful than I expected, yes." Harry enjoyed the coolness of his own voice. He certainly couldn't have kept his temper like this around Draco a few days ago. "But an apology isn't enough, Draco. I'm not about to move back into the Manor. I still think you might go and torture the Dursleys tomorrow."

Draco blinked. "Why?"

Harry gave him a withering look. "Are you blind, you _dolt_?" Childish as the insult was, it felt good to get that weight off his chest—or perhaps just good to watch Draco's cheeks darkening with a flush. "I don't trust you. You lied to me about the Dursleys. The apology could be a lie, too."

'Then why come here?"

"Because I was curious to watch you squirm on the hook." Harry leaned back in his own chair. "And because I wanted to yell at you about what an utter _idiot_ you were." His voice was rising now, but he didn't mind. He had the spells he'd cast before he ventured into the house, and he knew he was both magically stronger and better at defensive charms than Draco was. "How in the _world_ did you think torturing them was the way to get me to _like_ you?"

Draco's eyebrows came together in the middle of his forehead. "I'm beginning to think that you didn't read my apology very _carefully_," he said. "I didn't torture them because I thought you would fall all over me with gratitude. I tortured them because they hurt someone I love."

"But you thought I would approve," Harry snarled at him. "Or, at least, not mind."

"I didn't intend you to find out that way."

"So you were going to ply me with pretty words first?"

"Of course!" Draco sat up in his chair. "As you said, _I'm_ a Slytherin. I don't play around when there's something I want. I would have told you the truth in the end, but I would have done it at a time and place, and with words, of my choosing." He leaned forward. "I'm sorry now. I wasn't then. And I can't be sorry about protecting someone I love; I'm just sorry that I didn't do it in the right way, and that you reacted so badly."

Harry hissed at him. "The basic fact of the _torture_, Draco." He threw the word as hard as he could, but still Draco didn't drop his eyes the way Harry thought he should have if the word meant anything to him. "That doesn't bother you."

"That I used those spells?"

"_Yes._"

"No."

Harry sat back and tried to calm down, but his temper and his heart were both racing, and the words Draco spoke next didn't help matters.

"The Muggles are nothing to me in and of themselves, Harry. I mean that. When I found out what they _were_, then yes, I did the wrong thing. But I can't see them as victims, or whatever it is that you want me to see them as. I don't _care_ about them. I care about you."

"They're still human beings," said Harry, and the hope he'd come to the Manor with was gone, destroyed by red rage. How could he be with someone who didn't acknowledge this basic, fundamental truth? "Like the victims of the Death Eaters in the war. Like the Weasleys. Like the victims I help, like the criminals I bring in—"

"I thought you wouldn't try to be an Auror anymore." Draco leaned forward, his eyes snake-bright.

"I did give up on that, yes—"

"Permanently? When?"

Harry cursed under his breath. He hadn't, as a matter of fact, told Draco about the decision he'd made in his session with Theresa, that he had to figure out something else he wanted out of his life, because he wanted to do it without depending on Draco. On the other hand, he wasn't about to let Draco knock the argument away from the greater moral issue towards a white lie of his own.

"That's not the point. The point is that you don't seem to think the Dursleys deserved better than what you gave them."

Draco's mouth parted slightly, his lip curled, and his eyes shone like diamonds on the point of a drill. "Come, Harry," he breathed. "Did you expect me to start caring about Muggles _now_? At my time of life?"

"You've changed since the days you were a Death Eater—"

"Towards wizards. Not Muggles." Draco folded his arms. "I can have a Muggleborn like Dean Thomas in my house. I'm not about to invite the Dursleys to dinner with a smile and a wave. As I told you, and have tried to tell you again, they're nothing to me without their involvement with you, and since their involvement with you was uniformly negative, of _course_ I'm going to hate them. If you want me to stop hating them, then you seem intent on changing me from the person I was."

Harry hissed again. "You're not your father, Draco," he said. He had never dared invoke the ghost of Lucius, but if it made Draco listen to reason, then he wouldn't hesitate. "You don't torture people for no reason, or just because they're Muggles."

"Of course I'm not," Draco said, in the "ah, _now_ you comprehend," voice. "I torture people because they hurt someone I loved."

Harry dug his nails into his palms.

"I don't know how much more clearly I can say it," Draco said. "I'm sorry for how I hurt you—and that includes being sorry I tortured them _because it hurt you._ I'm not sorry for it just for their sake, because they don't exist to me for their sake. Only for yours." And his eyes remained calm and cold and clear, as if he really were saying the best of good sense.

"It was a mistake for me to come here," Harry said hollowly, standing. "I wanted to find out what you meant by that apology, and it's worse than I ever imagined."

He got three feet across the library before he heard the noise of Draco coming after him. A moment later, Draco moaned in pain. Harry glanced back with narrowed eyes to see him shaking his hand, eyes wide.

"I'm not about to let you touch me," Harry said. "We _both_ know how I react to that. I'm not going to make a decision to stay with you because my ears happen to be sensitive, or because I miss your touch." And _damn it,_ he hadn't meant to say that. Draco managed to look smug even in the middle of his shock. "So I cast a ward to keep you from touching me. It wouldn't do you good even if you did get through, since there's a nerve-deadening charm under that."

"What do you want from me?" Draco whispered, his voice gone lower than it had been since Harry entered the library. "I can say sorry. I can't change everything about myself for you. I didn't do that for my parents, and I didn't do it for my friends, and I didn't even do it for you when I kidnapped you at the height of my obsession. I didn't let you go when you wanted to leave. I remained that selfish, sneaky, vindictive Slytherin. What makes you think that I'll change now?"

"Look, the fault was mine, all right?" Harry snapped. The sense of connection he felt wasn't something he'd experienced before—or, at least, not in eleven years. He'd always been able to walk away from arguments easily, with a clear conscience, because the other partner in the debate didn't really matter to him. Now he felt as if he couldn't escape, or had no right to escape, or something in between those two. Even his efforts to extricate himself only seemed to twine him deeper into the honey, or mud, that connected him and Draco. "_I_ was the one who made the mistake, thinking you cared about people for their own sake. Of course you don't. As you said, you're yourself, and you have no need to change to suit my whims. So I'll leave now, and we don't ever need to see each other again."

By the time he turned back to the library door, a complicated set of wards had sprung up around it. Harry hissed again. He could break through the wards, but that wasn't the point. The point was that Draco had established them at all. That meant he didn't want to end their connection.

And Harry didn't—

He didn't think he could afford to be drawn back in. How could he? What if he ended up abandoning his principles for Draco? _He_ couldn't just change because his lover wanted him to, either.

"You're taking the coward's way out." Draco's voice was as soft and as malicious—and as hateful, Harry thought—as it ever had been back at Hogwarts. "You want to argue, we'll do that. You want to act like schoolboys, yes, we'll do that, too. You want to apologize and work through our mistakes? Oh, yes, I'm more than willing to do that. But you're not allowed to just run away. This _exists._ You're in love with me."

"And if I said I don't want to be?" Maybe the shock of that would be enough to hurt Draco and make him end this. Harry could feel his heart beating wildly in his chest. He _hated_ this feeling of being trapped.

He hadn't—he hadn't thought Draco was this prepared to fight, after all. Even after the confession at the door of his flat, even after the letter. He thought he could reach the point where Draco would just turn away and give up, because maintaining his connection with Harry was too much trouble.

But Harry couldn't seem to find the point where it was too much trouble for Draco.

"I would say that you're saying that to manipulate me," Draco murmured, without missing a beat. "And because this is the first deep relationship you've enjoyed in more than a decade. Of course you haven't the slightest clue what to do. Of course you'd rather I let you move on and grieve yourself over it, because that way you could reassure yourself it was my fault and you didn't do anything wrong."

"I never wanted you to change completely," Harry said, resigning himself to having this conversation. He turned, expecting Draco to back up. Draco only moved far enough away not to be hurt by the ward around Harry, though. "I thought—I thought you would see that torturing the Dursleys is _wrong._"

"Yes, wrong because it hurt you," Draco agreed.

Harry let his breath out in a low scream. "Wrong in and of itself."

"Why?" Draco cocked his head to the side. "I think my stance is one that most people have. They're just not honest enough to admit it to themselves. It's easy to be against torture when the victims are on the other side of the world. It's another not to want people who hurt your friends—and lovers—to suffer. Did you never want to torture a Death Eater because they were trying to hurt your friends?"

Harry stiffened. He wanted to protest that at least he hadn't _done_ it, he hadn't taken action, but even that wasn't true. As clearly as if it had happened two moments ago, he could hear himself screaming _Crucio_ at Bellatrix Lestrange when she had sent Sirius through the veil.

"I just—" And fear bit him again, because did what Draco was saying make sense, or was Harry just giving in because he missed him so much? He put a hand over his face and exhaled shakily. "I don't know what to _do._"

Draco chuckled, apparently hearing the anger as well as the terror in his voice. "I know," he said. "But we'll give it time, Harry. We can have as many conversations on the philosophy of torture as you like. Just no walking away, no cutting off contact." His voice dropped again. "I'd like it if you dropped the ward so I could touch you, too."

Harry glared at him around the edge of his palm. "Not a chance."

Draco raised his hands. "That's all right. But I miss touching you."

_Goddamnit. _Harry now half-wished he didn't have someone who would fight so hard for his affection and attention because it was so confusing. He'd come here to get out of the mire, and only ended up entangling himself more firmly.

It seemed this wouldn't be so easy as walking away, then, because Draco wouldn't let it be. He couldn't settle the matter in a single afternoon. There would have to be many.

"Listen," he said. "I'll speak to you about this again. But I'm not staying in the Manor."

"I didn't expect you to," Draco said calmly.

"Have an answer for everything, don't you?" Harry muttered.

"Not for what we can do to cure this." Draco studied him a moment more, then offered, "If it helps, there probably _is_ one thing that would make me agree that what I did to them was too much in and of itself."

Harry leaned forward. "What?"

"Tell me they didn't hurt you." Draco folded his arms. "Give me details about your childhood, Harry. Look me in the eye and say it wasn't that bad."

Relief broke over Harry like cool water. "Of course it wasn't that bad," he said. "You heard me tell Theresa. So I did chores; plenty of children do. And so I didn't enjoy equal treatment with their son; I wasn't their son." For some reason, that statement made Draco's face tighten with anger, but he remained silent. "And I didn't always get the food I wanted, and I slept in a cupboard, but—" And then he stopped, because Draco's steady stare had become a bit too much to look at.

"And plenty of children get starved and sleep in cupboards?" Draco asked.

"Or darker places." Harry shook his head. "I've seen some of them. The point is, Draco, so many people suffered worse."

"That doesn't mean you weren't hurt," Draco said. "They _did_ hurt you."

"But not that _badly_." Harry ran his hand through his hair, and ignored the regret that it wasn't Draco's hair he was touching. "Besides, you didn't completely demand proof that I wasn't hurt, just that it wasn't that bad."

"I say it was," Draco said softly. "Any treatment that can make a child cut himself off completely from other human beings and assume that of course other people won't love him is bad, Harry. That wasn't a trick you learned after your friends died. It was one you went _back_ to. They did that to you."

"That doesn't mean they deserve to be tortured!" Harry exclaimed. "Besides, I didn't want you to."

Draco's mouth quirked. "I find that a more persuasive argument than the other one," he said. "We'll speak about this. I might even come to agree with you. But I want a promise of honesty from you, just as you'll have it from me. No more lies of omission, no more trying to make things sound better than they were."

"I'm making them sound _just_ as they were." Harry glared through his fringe, and cursed Draco's overprotectiveness again. He took the silliest things as being proof that the Dursleys were evil incarnate.

"We'll use Pensieves if we must," Draco said. "And you'll hear about anything you wish from me, including _my_ childhood and what I believe about torture." He cocked his head. "But no running away allowed."

Harry weighed the offer carefully. All in all, it was better than he'd expected. He hadn't fallen into bed with Draco immediately. He hadn't agreed with him about the Dursleys, which was what Draco so obviously wanted.

And he hadn't forgiven him yet.

"All right," he said slowly.

He ignored the creeping feeling of delight in his stomach when Draco smiled at him, because that was just a childish thing to feel.

* * *

When Harry had gone, Draco called the house-elves back and let them bring him iced drinks, cold fruit, and a wet cloth for his brow.

That had been the hardest thing he'd ever done, possibly even counting his sixth year at Hogwarts.

But Harry had come to him. He hadn't managed to leave before Draco caught him, or turn aside every argument with an easy one of his own.

There was still a chance.

Leaning his head back against his chair, Draco smiled.


	54. Confrontations

_Chapter 54—Confrontations_

Draco had made sure the Manor was perfect for Harry's visit, and he now arranged the same thing for Narcissa's. He'd let Trippy have permission to redecorate the library, which she'd begged for whenever she thought he was in a good mood, and when his mother came to visit him there, Draco made sure the air was full of dust, disassembled bookshelves, new bookshelves waiting to be put into place, books with house-elves carefully checking their spines and pages for damage, and the smell of paint. He sat on a chair in the middle of it all, as undisturbed, at least outwardly, as he had been when Harry walked in.

_And even if it's only outwardly, that's the same as having inner serenity if no one can sense the difference._

Narcissa halted in front of him with a scented handkerchief held to her nose. "Draco?" she asked. "What is the meaning of this?"

"Hmmm?" Draco glanced up as if he hadn't heard her approach. That probably wouldn't fool her, but he knew she _would_ be wondering exactly how he could keep his face so calm and clear. "Oh. Hello, Mother. I thought I'd like the library redecorated."

A faint line appeared between her brows, but was gone in the next moment. She spelled a chair free of dust and sat down, watching him. Draco watched her back, and wondered if she would speak first. She did.

"Have you changed your mind about finding a daughter-in-law for me?"

_She speaks as if my wife would be her lover instead. _That brought images to mind Draco really didn't want to think about. He cleared his throat and said, "Of course not, Mother. Where would you receive that impression?"

"Your Mr. Potter is no longer in residence here."

"Yes," Draco said. "But I'm speaking with him, and we're doing what we can to reconcile our differences."

Narcissa leaned forward. "Draco," she said, and her voice shone with all the affection she'd ever felt for him, probably. "I did this for you. I freed you from him so that you could continue with your life. No blame will attach to you for his storming out like that, and he won't mention the true circumstances to the _Prophet_, I'm certain. Why won't you take the chance I gave you?"

"I don't want it." Draco tilted his head. "And, please, Mother, I am not so blind. I know you did this for yourself and for the continuation of the Malfoy line, not for me."

Narcissa uttered a sigh that wouldn't have been fit to ripple the surface of a goldfish pond. "My welfare and the continuation of the Malfoy line were also important to you, I had thought."

Draco gave a little nod. "Half right. The first still matters to me. The second, no."

Narcissa narrowed her eyes. "And may I ask why?"

It was amazing, Draco thought, what the worst blow having fallen on his connection with Harry could make him capable of braving. He didn't feel the need, now, to subdue his objections and pretend to Narcissa that he would marry someday. Courage rode inside him, along with a cool, clear anger, and an almost sweet surprise. He had been _afraid_ of her? Why should he be? He was not Blaise, whose mother held the purse strings and the leading strings. And if Narcissa had not learned, by now, what he was, she had been willfully deceiving herself. He had not lied to her.

"Because I plan to love and live with a _man_," he said, flavoring his voice with scorn as fresh as apples. "Really, Mother, no matter what Severus may have told you about those experimental potions, none of them have worked yet. I would still need a woman to conceive a child, and I won't have one."

Narcissa's breathing quickened by a tiny amount, and her eyelids drooped. Draco watched her.

"There are other ways," Narcissa said finally. "They have worked in the past. The war left many women of our own class—desperate. For some consideration, they may assent to conceiving and carrying a child even without the—bonds—that normally attend such a thing."

Draco's eyebrow crept up his face; he could feel it rising. "I suppose this is the place for me to mention that I plan on complete fidelity to Harry."

"You cannot do this," said Narcissa. "You are throwing away every prospect you have, every hope of happiness."

"No," Draco said calmly. "You tried to make me throw that away. And two years ago, when I didn't care about anyone the way I care about Harry, it would even have worked. My pride couldn't stand the embarrassment. But I've changed now. I will not say _grown up_, because I think Harry would disagree, and I need to think more on the matter myself. We'll settle, in every sense of the term."

Narcissa's hand clenched down hard enough to rip the silk handkerchief in two. "And what will your friends say to this?" she asked. "Your social circles? Wizarding society?"

"I think wizarding society will find the reemergence of the Man-Who-Killed-Voldemort interesting indeed," said Draco, and again let a faint smile come to his lips. "And Harry has had a rather forceful reminder—one I did not even engineer—of the fact that I'm a Slytherin. He won't be happy I plan on using his fame to claim the honors and comfort and attention we should have, but he'll argue with me about it instead of being shocked and horrified and dropping me the way you intended he should."

"You plan for yourself no peace, Draco," Narcissa whispered. "What I wanted to see for you—"

"Was living a life like the one you had with Father," Draco finished. "Yes, I know."

He could understand it. He could even pity her. That was why he felt only that clear, cold anger about what she had done; it was so _like_ her. Did one hate an adder for biting, when that was its nature? Truth be told, he should have seen this coming and outsmarted her in the first place.

"And no, I hardly think the life Harry and I have will be peaceful, or collected, or calm, or restrained." He slung one leg over the other in a deliberately casual pose, and grinned at Narcissa, which appeared to scandalize her. "I am rather looking forward to the storm. It will keep me from getting bored when the sheer novelty of having him in my bed has passed."

"Draco—"

"You can watch us from a distance, but you can't interfere." Draco leaned forward. "I'm forbidding you from coming back to the Manor for a year. We have properties in France where you can entertain yourself. Also, the moment you passed into my house today, you came under a spell that ensures you'll suffer intolerable nightmares if you set up plans to hurt Harry bodily. I can't keep you from insulting him, God knows, but plan assassination or wounding, and I doubt your pillow will see much of your head."

Narcissa's face truly was marble now, hard and pale and astonished. "I am your _mother._"

Draco raised an eyebrow again. "That fact has not escaped my attention."

"Harry wouldn't want you to lose your mother."

"Harry is not me," Draco said, "and our ways of doing things are not the same. He'll come to terms with it."

Narcissa spent some moments looking at him. Draco looked back.

He and Narcissa had danced a dance like this for years, with her plotting to make him do what she wanted, and him plotting ahead as much as he could. She had never gone this far, but then again, he had never advanced as far into the future with a lover as he planned to do with Harry. Draco saw this as just another episode in their struggle, another turn in the dance. Narcissa would never give up trying to control him, and he would never give up resisting.

In a way, he thought it was how she showed her love for him.

Sooner or later, Harry would understand that.

Finally, Narcissa inclined her head and stood up. "I wish you better luck than you have obtained with a lover so far, my son."

Draco leaned his head on his left arm and smiled. "Trippy will show you out. Goodbye, Mother."

* * *

"Mr. Potter. Thank you for coming."

Madam Bones's voice was clipped and cool. Harry supposed that was meant to intimidate him. As it was, he had to bite his lip to contain a smile as he rose to his feet in the anteroom outside her office. He could _feel_ the moment when she noticed that he wasn't wearing official Auror robes, but casual ones; her eyes raked him like centipede legs running over his skin.

"Hello, Madam," he said, and followed her into her office, shutting the door behind him. He could spare her embarrassment, which might happen if she started shouting. Harry didn't intend to shout himself. He sat down in front of the desk and nodded to her. "I received your letter."

"Yes." She relaxed as she sat down in turn, and the light glinted on her glasses as it had a thousand times when she gave him his cases. "So you're here to come back to work?"

"Not as such." Harry coughed to contain his chuckle. He wasn't sure _why_ he felt so happy. Maybe all employees felt like this when they could tell their bosses to sod off. "I'm here to tell you that I won't be returning to the Ministry."

She stared at him.

"At least, not in this capacity," Harry amended. "It's possible that I might someday work for the Ministry. Just not as an Auror." His world was wide, opening up before him. _I have Draco to thank for that. Of all the things he's taught me—well, besides what it's like to be in love—that's the most valuable. And God, it's a pain in the arse being in love with someone who believes things so entirely different from me._

"Harry." Madam Bones's voice was low and earnest, and she leaned across the desk towards him. "You know how badly we need you."

Here it was, the test. Harry could imagine himself crumbling before this even now, if his will wasn't strong enough and she chose the right words. He fixed his eyes on her face and nodded.

"So—"

"I know that you've trained yourselves to need me," Harry said calmly. "With time, you'll fill the hole I've left. You _have_ good Aurors, Madam. I've seen them. I've trained with them—and sometimes, I think, trained them." Looking back now, he wondered that it had taken Draco to point out to him how the Ministry used him as a kind of unofficial (and unpaid) teacher for recruits they weren't sure about. Sure, everyone had incompetent partners a time or two, but the rate of change for him was so high that he'd got more than his fair share. And Madam Bones had never encouraged someone to stay and work with Harry and get used to his eccentricities, either, or encouraged Harry to change so that he worked better with the others. They'd left him as he was because he was of more use to them that way.

It was—well, it would never make him as angry as it made Draco, and Draco would just have to come to terms with that. But it irritated him, and it was one of the larger factors in his not coming back to work.

"None as good as you, Harry."

Harry snorted and met her eyes fully. "I don't think that's true. They'll work well if you give them the chance."

Madam Bones pulled off her glasses and rubbed her face with one hand. The new insight in Harry's head, which he had taken to thinking of as his suspicious Slytherin voice, pointed out that she had no reason to show vulnerability in front of him. Probably, this was just part of another ruse to convince him to come back.

"Do you remember the oath of service Aurors take?" she asked.

"Of course." The words thundered through Harry's head if he thought about them; he'd been required to repeat them for weeks during his training, until he knew them by heart. The part that had always meant most to him was _to chase down Dark wizards and others who are a threat to the general peace; to confine them until such time as their guilt or innocence can be determined; to hold back from unnecessary bloodshed while we do so._

"I had thought it meant more to you than this," Madam Bones said, and put her glasses back on. "That's all."

Harry narrowed his eyes, truly angry for the first time. "You're trying to tell me that the victims will suffer without me?"

"Of course. Wormwood's botched the Moly case completely, as much as I hate to admit it." Madam Bones grimaced as if she'd swallowed a sour apple. "You could have solved it in a few days. You're a good interrogator, Mr. Potter, and good at—"

"Driving myself into near-suicidal insanity."

"I never saw any sign of insanity."

"Were you looking?" Several papers rearranged themselves on Madam Bones's desk, and Harry took a deep breath, trying to gain control of his magic. He saw her staring at the sheets of parchment, though, and decided this could be the perfect demonstration. "_That's_ what I mean, Madam. I was repressing my emotions, and my wandless magic rises with my emotions. Sooner or later, my control would have broken—perhaps when someone challenged me on a case with a curse too similar to the one I saw used on my godfather, perhaps when I encountered a large killing like the Weasley Massacre—and I could have destroyed half of London." He met her eyes, willing her to understand. He truly didn't think she was evil, just too used to leaning on him. He'd never resisted, for years and years and years; why shouldn't she think this was just a passing fancy? "Draco Malfoy was good enough to show me how fragile my control was, and while it's much more stable now, it won't be if I continue to work as an Auror. I take the cases too seriously. I fret myself over them when there's nothing to be done. I work hours that are too long." He paused, and then gave in to curiosity, because he had to ask. "Why didn't you ever make me take a holiday? I know you did it with other Aurors who'd spent too long on a case."

"You never seemed near a collapse." Madam Bones folded her arms. "You were too good." She was trying to make it sound like it was his fault, of all things.

"And there was no one to complain," Harry muttered. _Yes, my lack of family and friends did make it easier to ignore what I did. If I'd had Draco during those years, I imagine he would have raised quite the fuss. _"But there are still regulations to follow, Madam, about making sure Aurors take a certain number of days off a year. If I'm doing the maths correctly, I should have an enforced holiday of six months before I even _begin_ to work again. And yet here you are, trying to urge me back to my job as soon as possible. Why?"

She wouldn't look him in the eye.

Harry sat back and thought for a moment. The suspicious Slytherin voice told him to consider power, and sources of power, and what power followed.

"Did I really earn _that_ much funding for the Department?" he asked her, a trace of sadness in his voice.

_I meant money to her, and solved cases. And that really was all._

Pain wanted to strike him. He wouldn't let it. Even if he had been bleeding at the heart from a complete break with Draco, he wouldn't have given in to this pain. He could make new connections, and he would.

"You have no idea what you earned, Mr. Potter." Her eyes were steady again, and her voice utterly cool.

Harry nodded, and stood. "That's because I had no idea what I was worth," he said. "Well. Now I do, and I'm leaving the employment of the Aurors permanently. Good day, Madam Bones."

"Wait, Harry." Her voice was frantic. He glanced back at her. "If we made sure that you had the correct number of days a year off, if we—"

Harry shook his head slightly. "I don't trust myself, even if I could trust you," he said. "I'd fall into the trap again. And I have someone who needs me now, who gave a lot to bring me out of that trap in the first place. I won't do that to him."

Madam Bones frowned at him. "Are you sure that you can trust him, Harry? A Death Eater's son, a Death Eater himself—"

The paperwork boiled up from her desk and hit her in the face. At the same time, her chair rattled and dumped her to the floor. Harry distinctly heard the impact of her tailbone with the wood.

"See?" he managed to say calmly, even cheerfully, though his heart was beating hard and his mind screamed with fury. "I really wouldn't be a good candidate for the Aurors any more. That damn accidental magic, always escaping my control. Good _day._"

He shut her door with an impact more emphatic than a slam as he left. Then he stood in the center of the hallway and breathed for a moment.

_I've burned my bridges now._

The suspicious Slytherin voice sounded exactly like Draco when it said, _Good._


	55. Quite the Screaming Row

_Chapter 55—Quite the Screaming Row_

"Wine?"

"No, thank you." Harry knew he was extremely unlikely to become drunk in Draco's presence, but he didn't want to take the smallest chance. Draco didn't seem displeased as he accepted a glass of wine from Trippy and then leaned back in the library chair.

Harry had been trying to ignore what stood on a table between their seats, but then Draco said, "I have the Pensieve," so he couldn't any longer.

"So I see." Harry tried to look neutrally at the Pensieve. He had the feeling he'd failed. He had no good memories of one of them; Dumbledore's and Snape's had revealed dark memories to him, and when he used them as evidence in a trial, it was often on the behalf of a person too traumatized to speak for himself. This was empty. That didn't soothe Harry. He knew what kinds of memories Draco would soon demand he put in there, and he had the feeling he knew what Draco's memories would concern, as well.

"Do you want to begin?" he asked Draco.

That made Draco smile, though Harry didn't know why. He took out his wand and held it to his temple. "Of course," he said. "What kinds of memories would you like to see?"

Harry thought a moment. "Something normal in the Slytherin common room," he said. "And—well, memories of your childhood, if you want to share them with me." He thought he should know the worst about Draco's childhood, the way that Draco would know the worst about his, but he also wanted the Slytherin common room because he had to remind himself that Draco wasn't _always_ this infuriating person who insisted on regarding torture as an amusement. Harry had caught himself smiling often over a memory of Draco in the last few days, only to once again remember the expression on the Dursleys' faces when Draco had tormented them, and wonder whether he was excusing too much immoral behavior.

Draco nodded, and pulled a few silvery strands of memories loose from his temple, dropping them into the Pensieve. Harry took a deep breath, even though he knew perfectly well that he could still breathe with his head below the surface of the liquid, and then leaned forward and looked into them.

The image wavered into being before him. Draco sat on a chair in front of a fire, frowning at the book in his hands. By craning his neck a bit, Harry could make out that it was an Astronomy textbook. Crabbe and Goyle played Exploding Snap not far away, removing the cards with that care that told Harry they'd already been burned several times that evening. A dark-haired girl he thought was Millicent Bulstrode crouched across a chessboard from a recognizably younger Blaise Zabini. From the looks of things, they were probably in fourth year, maybe fifth. _Fourth, _Harry decided, as Draco moved a bit and a 'Potter Stinks' badge attached to his robes came into view.

"Blaise," Draco muttered, "what's the seasonal significance of Orion?"

"Draco," Blaise said gently, picking up a pawn and moving it across the board, "sod off."

Millicent grinned like a shark, and moved one of her own pieces to capture Blaise's. Blaise hissed beneath his breath. "That wasn't fair," he said. "Draco was distracting me."

The girl shrugged. "If something like _that_ can distract you, you deserve to lose."

Draco peeked around his book. "She's right, Blaise," he said. "I could have won that game in three moves."

"Says the fellow who doesn't know the seasonal significance of Orion." Blaise stretched and lay down so his head was near the fire. "I don't want to finish the game, Millicent. We have Potions tomorrow."

"You don't have a book anywhere near," said a snotty voice, and an older Slytherin girl whom Harry didn't recognize walked around from behind Draco's chair. She had a prefect's badge on her robes. "You should be _studying._ Professor Snape wants the other Houses to be able to look up to Slytherin."

Millicent muttered something Harry couldn't hear, but which sent Blaise into a coughing fit. Draco, meanwhile, looked up at the prefect with an expression of wide-eyed innocence that made Harry smile despite himself.

"What was that?" the older girl demanded.

"She said that Blaise needs to stop being lazy and fetch a book, of course," Draco interrupted, with trained politeness. "Blaise was laughing because he disdains the idea, but he's going to do it." He arched an eyebrow at Blaise. "Right now."

With a sigh, Blaise stood and went towards the stairs at the far end of the common room, which presumably led to his bedroom and his trunk. Harry had to stifle another smile, while his suspicious Slytherin voice noted that Blaise, even at this young age, apparently gave in easily to what other people wanted of him.

Millicent caught and held Draco's eye as the prefect left. Harry couldn't really tell if she was contented or dissatisfied. Draco just winked at her and then went back to reading. Crabbe and Goyle had never glanced up from their game.

The scene dissolved into mist, and Harry pulled his head out, thoughtful.

"Why did you want to see that?"

Harry looked at Draco, and decided to tell him the truth. "To remind myself that you can be normal," he said. "I was tempted—it was stupid, but I was tempted to think of you as concealing all this hidden hatred and evil from me when we argued the other day. But that's stupid. Of course someone can be capable of torture and still be perfectly ordinary and sensible at other times." He licked his lips, and wondered if he should be saying that. It was the kind of thing that would have got him in enormous trouble at the Ministry. "I'm sorry," he added, to the dark expression on Draco's face.

"I won't forget you said that."

To avoid having to decipher this, Harry put his head down into the next memory.

It was a succession of images, this time, rather than a single connected scene like the one in the Slytherin common room. Draco nearly fell off a broom, and his mother cried and held him close, but Draco stood stiffly in her embrace, clearly wanting to escape. Draco's parents called him into the library when they had guests, and had their son recite a long, complicated poem, which made the guests clap politely. Draco went shopping with his father and watched shopkeepers defer at once to Lucius Malfoy. Stories filtered into Draco's ears about the "wrong sort": the Weasleys, but also other wizarding families with names Harry had never heard of, and of course Muggles and Muggle-lovers and Mudbloods and Harry Potter. Narcissa pushed Draco in front of a mirror attired with green and silver, although he looked two years too young for Hogwarts, and whispered that _of course _he would be in Slytherin. Draco played with a changing group of children, among whom Millicent, Blaise, and Pansy Parkinson were nearly always central, and learned simpler versions of the power plays his parents were engaged in. Draco went to parties, concerts, plays, meetings, and openings of new buildings, and learned to enjoy both the spectacle and the currents moving underneath. Harry got used to the way his eyes flashed when he watched money changing hands, or saw someone pause to whisper in someone else's ear, or tracked blushes and guessed who'd been sleeping together.

And Harry understood, at last, something that had been puzzling him: why Draco had reacted so strongly when Harry said that he mattered, and that his mistakes during the war didn't prove a personal weakness about him.

No one else had ever said that to Draco, not in so many words. From the memories, Harry thought the phrase had always been, "You matter _because._"

_You matter because you're a Malfoy. You matter because you can perform tricks. You matter because you're smart enough to control the situation. You matter because you're the heir of our legacy and you'll follow in the traditions of our family. You matter because I gave birth to you and rearing you is an accomplishment I want to be proud of. You matter because of what you could do in the future._

The images had more undercurrents than just the ones Draco had noticed as a child. Harry wondered if he had ever looked at his memories all at once, and realized how much they'd molded him into someone at once determined to resist what other people wanted of him and someone who valued the same things they did.

Granted, he couldn't value _everything_ the same way they did, or he would never have defied Narcissa. But he valued enough to despise himself for not being able to kill, and for making a mistake that someone else could have brushed off as the result of youthful self-confidence. He didn't match those ingrained standards, and he allowed the mistake to get under his skin and torment him.

He didn't deserve that. He was so far from deserving it that Harry found himself eager to leave the memories so he could tell him so.

He sat back, pushing his hair from his forehead, and turned to Draco. The look in his eyes made Draco blink and press back in the chair.

"First," said Harry, "thank you for showing those to me. Second, you matter."

"Yes, you said that already," Draco murmured, smoothing the surprise on his face over.

"I'm not finished," Harry told him. "You need to hear it again and again. You _should_ hear it again and again, because that's what you deserve. You tend to focus on your weakness, but why not focus on your strength instead? You managed to resist the forces that tried to shape you exactly in your parents' image. Not everyone could have. That's something to be proud of."

Draco cocked his head. "I _do_ like it when you compliment me," he said, but the lightness on the surface of his voice covered darker things under the surface, and Harry knew it.

"This is more than a compliment," Harry said. "This is the way you are. And I think brooding on your past wrongs doesn't help make up for—" He nearly said _for present ones, _but changed his mind. "I mean, it doesn't change that you have strength when you want to. You could have kidnapped me and just given up at any time, for example, but you didn't. And you had a way of healing me in mind. How many people would have done that?"

Draco's face was touched with both pleasure and caution, as if he thought Harry would change his mind at any moment. "Well, not everyone is Draco Malfoy."

"No," Harry corrected. "Not everyone is _Draco_."

He leaned forward and made sure he was holding Draco's eyes when he said that, and didn't let Draco look away for long moments. Then Draco coughed and turned the other way, his cheeks flushing.

"Well," he said. "Shall we look at your memories, Harry?" His eyes already glinted when he glanced back. "Your worst ones of childhood with the Dursleys, please. I should be able to judge for myself what they were like."

Harry nodded. He wasn't going to try to trick Draco. For one thing, it wouldn't be fair when Draco had been so honest with him; for another, the worst Draco could imagine was much worse than what had actually happened. "All right," he said, and pulled several strands out of his temple, concentrating to make sure he recalled the times he'd been most upset and unhappy. Then he dropped them in the Pensieve, and sat back with one eyebrow raised. "When you're ready."

* * *

_I wonder if he realizes that his praising me and expressing faith in me will just make me that much more eager to hurt his enemies, _Draco thought, and leaned forward, his face passing into the liquid.

He recognized the squalid Muggle house's kitchen, where he'd enchanted the Dursleys' glasses and cutlery to spell out a threatening message. He wrinkled his nose, but turned around quickly when someone called, "Boy, go into the kitchen and make breakfast this instant!"

"Yes, Aunt Petunia," said an uninterested voice, and Draco heard a creak. He leaned out of the kitchen to see what it was.

Harry—a much younger Harry, though Draco found it hard to tell how old he was because of the baggy clothes covering him—climbed out of the cupboard beneath the stairs. Draco had underestimated just how much the sight would enrage him, even though he'd seen the cupboard himself. He bit his lip, hard, and stepped back as the younger Harry went into the kitchen and started cooking with the Muggle implements.

He made bacon, toast, and pancakes, poured orange juice, and sliced a grapefruit. He put food on every plate, but a smaller amount on his own than his uncle's, cousin's, or aunt's. When they sat down to eat, Harry sat at a distance from them, with one wary eye out. Draco recognized the expression from first-years in Slytherin who'd attracted the attention and malice of an older student. Harry was on his guard around his relatives.

_Oh, no, they never beat you, _Draco thought. _And doubtless you'd say that you got something to eat, this time, even if it was smaller than the other portions. But living tense, alert, like a wild animal—is that what you call healthy, Harry?_

"Clean this up right now, boy," Vernon Dursley demanded, sitting back from the table.

"Yes, Uncle," Harry said, and appeared to inhale the rest of the food on his plate. Then he stood to carry the dishes to the counter.

"Wait, Vernon," Petunia said. "We have something for the boy, first."

"What? Oh, yes, of course."

Harry had turned around. Draco could see the struggle in his face. He hoped, and he hated himself for hoping.

With much solemnity, Vernon pulled a toothpick from his pocket and held it out. "Happy birthday, boy," he said.

Harry stared dully at the toothpick for a moment.

"Well?" Vernon shook it at him impatiently. "Go on, _take_ it. And remember your manners."

"Thank you, Uncle Vernon," Harry said as he freed a hand to take the toothpick. There was a dangerous moment when the plates he carried wavered, but he managed to balance them and go to the sink. Draco thought the Muggles looked disappointed.

_God, how many birthdays did he pass like that?_

The memory swept into one of Harry running, hurtling across an open space away from a younger version of his cousin and three or four other boys. Draco could hear them laughing and yelling, though only "freak" and "Harry" and sometimes "cousin" were audible.

Abruptly, magic shimmered around Harry. Draco could feel its presence, though he doubted the Muggles would have a clue what it was, and the next moment, Harry was gone.

Dudley and his friends skidded to a halt and stared around with their mouths hanging open. Then someone pointed, and Draco glanced up to see Harry on the roof of a nearby building. He looked somewhere between terrified and exhilarated, at least until Dudley howled and tore away. Then Harry winced and clung to the roof of the building a bit more tightly. Draco could almost see him trying to come up with excuses that would reason this away for his uncle and aunt, and knowing he wouldn't be able to do so.

The next memory was of an enormous woman, holding a small dog, casually mentioning "bad blood" and "drunkards" while looking significantly at Harry. Harry looked rather put out, but he turned his back on her, in an attempt to ignore what she was saying.

And then there was a locked room with bars on the window, where Harry stared dreamily at the sky and looked bored out of his skull. When his aunt unlocked the door, he went down to breakfast, which was a quarter of a grapefuit. Dudley howled about a "stupid diet," so that was probably for Dudley's benefit. Draco didn't care. The stupid Muggle boy could have eaten less food and left enough of some other kind for Harry. Then Dudley began to blubber and wail, so Petunia took the quarter of grapefruit from Harry's plate and gave it to him. Harry stared at the table and said nothing at all, though Draco could see the storm building behind his eyes.

Dudley's chair abruptly shook hard enough under him to drop him to the floor. Petunia leaned over and hissed, "_Watch_ yourself," at Harry before she went to tend to her son. The expression of mingled fear and hatred on her face was enough to make Draco wish she were real, not just a memory, so he could curse her.

And on and on it went. Yelling, neglect of Harry while Dudley received everything, removal of food on the slightest pretext, the lies about his parents—Draco was sure they were lies, not even half-truths, though he didn't know that much about James and Lily Potter—and sleeping in the cupboard or the dusty, bare room appeared to make up Harry's life.

Even granted that Harry hadn't had a reason to choose happy memories to fulfill Draco's request, Draco considered this beyond the pale.

He surfaced, at last, and found Harry watching him expectantly. Draco gave him a little nod. "You're right," he said. "I shouldn't have tortured them."

Harry's eyes widened, and he spoke with pleasure behind his voice. "Really?"

"Yes," Draco said. "I should have killed them."

The storm swept in across Harry's face the way it had when Petunia took his younger self's food away. He rose to his feet and surveyed Draco in silence. Draco stared back. He wasn't about to take back what he'd said.

"But you won't," Harry said. "You _can't_. You said—you're better than that, Draco, to kill someone because you're angry."

"Harry." Draco tried to gain control of his voice, but it wasn't happening. It came out as a growl. "Did you _see_ what they did to you? Have you ever _really_ looked at it?"

"Yes." Harry leaned forward. "I don't know that _you_ have."

Draco just stared at him again.

"That was the worst they did to me," Harry insisted. "The very worst. They called me names, yes—but Snape did the same thing at Hogwarts. And they made me do chores, but didn't we do that in detentions? And I promise, Draco, they didn't hit or kick or beat me. Not once."

"Your cousin did."

"Well, all right," said Harry. "But he beat up everybody he could catch, not just me." He was pacing back and forth by now. Draco supposed he must have relied on those memories to convince Draco the Dursleys really were good, or at least not bad. "And those were the very _worst_ times, remember. Most of the time, it wasn't that bad."

"Tell me something, Harry." Draco cocked his head. "Would you have insisted that my childhood wasn't that bad, just because my parents didn't hit or kick or beat me, and sometimes were even proud to show me off?"

"That's different."

"Tell me how," Draco whispered.

"You're still bothered by it." Harry turned around and scowled at him. "And there are children still being abused; I used to meet them when I worked on cases for the Aurors. But my childhood is over and done with. I hadn't even thought about the Dursleys in _years._ Digging it up isn't going to do anyone any good."

"You really believe it doesn't affect you any longer?" Draco clasped his hands in front of him to keep from reaching for his wand. _God, Harry annoys me so much. _It didn't help that Harry's eyes, when he was angry, matched that shade of green that had attracted Draco's attention in the first place and aroused him like nothing else. "When you cut yourself off from everyone after your friends died—"

"That wasn't the Dursleys' fault." Harry tossed his head in that wild-horse way he had. "That was mine. I did it, not them—"

"They still _scarred_ you, Harry! And they deserve something for it. Something more than to be ignored, or rescued."

"I think what you did more than qualifies," Harry snarled. One of Draco's new bookshelves twisted and warped like an accordion. Harry didn't appear to notice. "And if what you said was true, they would still have deserved _justice_, not vengeance."

"Forgive me for having less faith in the Ministry than you do." Draco decided staying seated wouldn't calm Harry, and stood. "Would you have wanted a trial, Harry, when the _Daily Prophet_ and Madam Bones would have a field day with it?"

"I didn't want _anything!_ I wanted them left alone!" Harry's eyes flashed. "And I don't want you going back and killing or torturing them again, either!"

Draco felt his lip draw back from his teeth. "You don't accept my word that I won't do it again, then? More and more, I wonder if you read that apology letter I sent you at all, Harry."

"There's the small matter of my not _trusting_ you anymore, Draco!"

"I know it hurt you. I meant it when I said I wouldn't do it again." Draco leaned forward. "And now can you admit, you _prat_, that you're still hurting, and what they did to you was horrible, and that while outright torture was wrong, they still should have been _punished?_"

"They don't—it wasn't that bad—"

"Yes, it _fucking was!_" Draco couldn't remember the last time he'd been this upset. What his mother had done to him and Harry hardly qualified, since Harry had responded to his letter so quickly. "Admit it, you stubborn _idiot_, it _was!_ I thought you'd started telling the truth when you talked to Theresa. I thought you were going to be honest with me. I suppose that's yet another promise that you feel free to break, like the original one that you'd stay with me for a month?"

Harry _snarled_, and the Pensieve upended and went flying. Harry flung out a hand, and the silver liquid stopped its tumble in midair and flew back to his wand, where he again attached the strands of memories to his temple, glaring at Draco all the while.

Draco wasn't sorry. Apart from getting Harry's eyes to glow like that, this argument _might_ make the idiot think, and Draco was all for anything that did that.

"I went through it," Harry said, in a tone of voice that made it clear he didn't want to discuss this any more. "I survived. That's all I can ask for from people I got dumped on as a baby, who didn't ask for me and who hated magic. It's _done with_. And I don't want to talk—"

"Then how are we going to settle our debate on the philosophy of torture?" Draco cocked his head again. "Strange to skirt around talking about torture when that was the cause of the argument in the first place."

"Maybe we should just stop. Not talk, not try to—"

The roaring rage Draco hadn't felt for Narcissa's actions came up in him now. His hand clenched around his wand so hard he really was afraid he might snap it, and dimly, he thought, _Maybe it's true that the people you love the most are the only ones who can really hurt you._

He didn't care about that, though. He cared about making Harry understand one very simple thing.

"Every time you talk about giving this up," he said, "every time you act as though we can't possibly speak to each other in a civil fashion and get past this, you drive me _mad_, Harry. You're saying that you don't trust my intentions, that all my work's been wasted, that my love isn't worthy of your respect. And you're giving in to the same idiocy I thought you'd worked past with Theresa, that you don't need human connections and you're not worthy of being loved."

"I can find human connections!" Harry yelled, and the library began to vibrate. "Maybe I just don't want them with _you!_"

"You don't have a choice anymore, Harry. You lost that choice the moment you fell in love with me." Draco took a step forward. "Now, are you going to run away from me again, or admit that I'm right?"

Harry stood where he was, eyes nearly black, magic snapping in visible sparks around his fingers. He gave Draco a thoroughly unpleasant smile, and said, "First, I'm leaving so I don't hurt you. And then, I'm going to Surrey and putting wards around the Dursleys' house. Just in case."

Draco winced, a hollowness opening in his chest where the rage had been. "Fuck you, Harry."

"Get your mind out of the gutter, Malfoy," Harry sniped, and Disapparated, right through the wards around the Manor that prevented Apparition. Draco staggered back with a hiss. The wards were connected to him at the deeper levels, and popped and twinged and twanged.

Rage ran chattering around his head. He knew that he'd caused part of the situation, especially by breaking Harry's trust in him.

But he was also _right_, and Harry was being an utter _idiot_ for not seeing that, and ensuring that their reconciliation took even _longer._

Draco wondered darkly what defect of his genetics or temperament had made him fall in love with a Gryffindor.


	56. The Inner War

_Chapter 56—The Inner War_

He'd Apparated just in time, Harry reflected. A moment more in Draco's presence, and he might have let the façade of his anger crumble. And then the rest of it would have fallen.

He leaned against the wall of his flat and _breathed_ for long moments.

He'd intended to go to the Dursleys until the moment before he Apparated. And then he'd seen the expression on Draco's face, and his own boiling confusion had rushed back to the surface, and he'd changed his destination to home instead. He had to break through both his own anti-Apparition wards and Draco's, but he could repair his own, and he didn't think a small tear in the Manor's defenses would cost Draco much effort to heal.

He'd had to leave. He was so thoroughly confused.

_I'm lucky I didn't Splinch myself, _Harry thought, pulling back from the wall and shaking his head. A chair stood in front of a fireplace with a Floo connection he'd blocked the day he returned. He didn't want any calls from either Draco or the Ministry interrupting him. Now he cast himself down in the chair and closed his eyes.

The more he listened to Draco, the more he started to sound—right. Not about torturing or killing the Dursleys, but about his reasons for wanting to do so. And the more he listened, the more Harry wanted to trust him again, to conditionally forgive him, to stay close and watch carefully for signs that Draco was going to do something untrustworthy again. If he didn't, then Harry's forgiveness could become full and unconditional.

But he _couldn't_ just do that, could he?

It would be forgiving Draco for torture. It would be forgiving him for intent to murder. It would be like letting an unrepentant criminal go because Harry felt sorry for him. And that would make him far more immoral than acting in accordance with his own beliefs had made Draco, and he would be responsible for anything Draco did to hurt the Dursleys in the future.

Harry had arrested people who'd attacked former Death Eaters, or people like Draco, who'd been accused of complicity during the War but had managed to remain free of Azkaban. He might not have liked their victims—in fact, in a few cases he was absolutely sure _they_ were the guilty ones, in many senses of the term—but he had arrested the attackers anyway. Torture and murder weren't things he could look away from.

Similarly, though he'd been gleeful when he arrested Bellatrix Lestrange, he hadn't laid a violent hand on her. At one point during the interrogation, he'd thought he would, and so he'd left the room and calmed himself down in the corridor for an hour. He _couldn't_ violate the standards of justice he believed in for the pleasures of a moment.

And this situation was a hundred times worse, because he loved Draco, and the suspicious Slytherin voice in his head kept whispering that Draco was right in his conclusions about the Dursleys.

But maybe he _wasn't_. Maybe Harry only wanted to forgive him and make excuses for him because he loved him, and if he were rational or objective he'd see that Draco was no different from a hundred people in Azkaban right now for cursing others.

_It's not as though he just threatened to hurt them. He actually did._

Harry growled low in his throat. God, this was _confusing_, and he hated it so much. He'd had a calm, clear life a few weeks ago. The things that complicated it were usually scandals and confrontations that the higher powers in the Ministry would handle, not him. He adjusted his routine to them when necessary, and worked around them. He knew what he was allowed to do and what he wasn't, and he faithfully walked inside those boundaries.

And now Draco threatened to violently upset Harry's beliefs, just as he had his routine. But how far did it go? How much could Harry change before he became immoral or too permissive himself?

He didn't know, and no matter how he wrestled with the issue, he couldn't come to a conclusion.

He backed off and did his best to approach it from a new direction, the most recent part of the argument. Did he believe Draco when he said that Harry still carried scars from the Dursleys? And if he did, why couldn't he just admit that, the way Draco wanted him to?

The answer came at once.

_Yes. But I don't trust him any longer. I don't want to be that vulnerable in front of him. And admitting pain always makes me vulnerable._

And if he took the risk and trusted Draco, that might mean someone else would get hurt. In fact, perhaps he should have gone to the Dursleys' house and put up those wards after all. He absolutely couldn't trust Draco, and did he want his relatives to suffer because of his own foolishness?

Except that he did trust Draco, a little.

Harry cursed, and two of his books on Ministry law jumped off a shelf in answer.

He rose restlessly to his feet. It was too late to fly now; it was dark, and had begun to rain. At least he had the flying exhibition at Hogwarts to look forward to tomorrow.

_You didn't tell Draco about that_, said the suspicious Slytherin voice, which seemed to have decided it was its duty to interrogate him, Draco not being there to do it.

_Because I don't trust him_.

_You didn't tell him about leaving the Aurors, either, even though you know that would please him, and maybe make him more relaxed when you started arguing._

Harry closed his eyes. Well, here was one thing he did know. He was pulling back from Draco less because he didn't trust him than because he still wanted to guard parts of himself, because the depth of what he felt for Draco, and the impulse to share so much with him, still made him worried.

_I thought you passed that border when you let him tease you? _The suspicious Slytherin voice appeared to have a script in front of it.

Harry tried to calm himself down with the breathing exercises he'd learned in Auror training. It didn't work. He couldn't go flying, and he didn't want to try to read or even go to Diagon Alley under a glamour and mingle with the people there. He was lonely. He wanted Draco's company.

_Great trick, making me dependent on him in three weeks, _he thought irritably.

_He doesn't want you dependent on him, he wants you choosing freely to lean on him, _said the suspicious Slytherin voice.

"God, shut up, will you?" Harry said aloud, and stood, wandering into the kitchen. He should eat something.

And then he would—well, he'd write a letter to Draco. He never had to send it. In fact, it was probably better if he didn't. He'd use it more to work out his own emotions and confusions than to tell Draco anything about them. When he felt up to it, he'd send a polite owl telling Draco he would come to see him in a week or so. He needed to calm down.

* * *

Draco rolled his eyes. "It's not the end of our relationship, no, Severus. We're in love with each other. We don't walk away from each other that easily."

"You should never have contacted Potter." Severus's face in the green flames of the Floo connection was inflexible. "He'll bring you nothing but misery and pain, Draco."

"As if your garden and your isolation spare you that!"

That attracted a harangue, the way Draco had known it would, but he didn't care. Talking to Severus was less about asking for advice and more about easing his own mind. He'd dashed out a letter to Harry saying it would be best if they kept apart for a week or so, and sent it off with his black eagle-owl. The eagle-owl was late returning with a response. Draco didn't know if that was a hopeful sign or not. Perhaps Harry was composing pages of invective for him.

Abruptly, his owl came wheeling in through the open library door; a window was always left wide for him, and he knew his way through the house. Draco cocked his head in confusion. One powerful talon clutched a half-crumpled piece of parchment, without envelope or name written on the outside, and it wasn't bound to the owl's leg. Draco held up a gloved hand, wincing a little anyway as the bird landed, and took the letter carefully from the long nails.

Harry's letter started off with a _Dear Draco_, but after that, the words stumbled and scrawled and nattered their way across the page, without a sign that they'd been planned. Draco thought he understood. Harry had written this, probably not intending to send it, and the eagle-owl had come, dropped off his own letter, and taken this in return. Harry might not even know it was gone. Draco's owl was too clever for his own good sometimes.

Of course, it didn't occur to Draco _not_ to read it. He was getting a glimpse of Harry's mind unguarded, and perhaps that might let him understand the idiot further.

The idiot, it seemed, repented of his own idiocy.

_I don't know what to do. I'm on the verge of forgiving you, and then I think of the way you stood over the Dursleys with your wand in your hand, and a smile on your face, like you were_ enjoying _it. That makes me wonder and worry. Are you really that sadistic bastard?_

_Except I know you're not, because no sadistic bastard could have taken care of me like you did. And I love you, and I'm sure that I couldn't be fooled that thoroughly—not anymore. Besides, what would be the point of kidnapping me the way you did instead of wooing me more gently if you really wanted to keep yourself secret from me? It doesn't make sense._

_Nothing about this does._

_I keep thinking you're right. I keep thinking I can't let you be right, because that would mean I'm condoning torture. I keep thinking that even if I decide you're right, I can never let you know, because you'd try to persuade me to go and take revenge on the Dursleys after all._

_They did hurt me, you know. I can admit that much. Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad without Dudley there to compare, but seeing him receive birthday gifts when I didn't, and have friends when I didn't, and be loved when I wasn't, scarred me the worst. I knew what I was missing. Besides, Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept reminding me of it. They mentioned my parents all the time, just to emphasize that they weren't there. They made sure Dudley was a pet with Aunt Marge and I wasn't, because even a woman as hateful as she is could love Dudley, and she couldn't love me, so—what did that make me?_

_I can remember just deciding, around the time I was six or seven, that I didn't want to be hurt anymore. I still was, because I couldn't help getting my hopes up, as in that birthday memory you saw. But I tried my hardest not to be. I knew I'd grow up and could leave the Dursleys someday. I'd endure until then. I had no idea what I would find in the world outside their house, but I knew the world was there. I had vague dreams of—something better. I can't even give it a name._

_And then there was the wizarding world, but that wasn't exactly _restful. _And I still had to go back to the Dursleys', except now I knew why they hated me. And I didn't think it was a good reason to hate me. It wasn't like I could help being born with magic, or suppress it; I've read about wizards trying to ignore their magic and completely failing. I read about that when I thought about giving up my magic after Voldemort. The books I found convinced me that that was a non-resort, because it wouldn't work._

_But I don't want to tell you this, because it means you could use my words to hurt me. So that's decided, then. I won't send this letter._

_Besides, I walked out of their house the moment I turned seventeen and the protection of the blood wards ended. I really don't see the point of bringing it all up again. I suffered it, and it still affects me, but why should they suffer? Why should they be punished for something they never considered wrong, and that I want to ignore? We're the parties concerned in it, and it should be up to us what happens. Not to you, Draco._

_I miss you so much. And ugh, why did I write that? I'd strike it out, except I don't know if I have the coordination to hold the quill much longer—I'm so tired—and there's more I want to say._

_I walked out on the Aurors on Monday. I insulted Madam Bones in the bargain. And I'm going flying at Hogwarts tomorrow, in an exhibition of stunt brooms. I have a Nimbus now. I'm moving on with my life. I could have a life even if we ended up disagreeing forever._

_But I want you there, in my life. And I can't come up with any other answer than the fact that I love you._

_I don't know. That seems to be my mantra lately._

Draco looked up, and stared at the far wall for a moment. Half his mind crowed with delight. Half wanted to shake Harry, and demand to know why the _idiot_ hadn't just confessed this, because it would have made things so much easier.

"Bad news from your boyfriend?" Severus inquired snidely.

"I have to plan," Draco said, and reached out to close the Floo connection. "Good-bye, Severus."

Severus looked astonished—most of the time, he was the one to end their conversations, not Draco—but then his face vanished. Draco went to find treats for the eagle-owl, who surely deserved them for being such a wonderful bird and bringing this letter.

Yes, Harry hadn't wanted him to see it, and would no doubt be distressed to realize it was gone. But Draco could still use the information in it, without seeming to use it. His strategy, now that he knew Harry partially agreed with him instead of being fixed in unalterable opposition, would be gentle, coaxing, giving Harry the choice of liberation from him while showing how much he could have if he stayed. Harry didn't want to feel crowded and pressured to agree; well, Draco wouldn't crowd and pressure him. He'd show Harry that _he_ could live his own life, too, but that their lives would be the most pleasant when they coincided with each other's. And he'd begin doing that when he attended the exhibition at Hogwarts tomorrow.

_But it would still have been easier if he'd just told me all of this in the first place._


	57. The Exhibition

_Chapter 57—The Exhibition_

"There you are, Potter! We'd thought to give up hope."

Harry put on a smile, and let Bancroft shake his hand, so enthusiastically that he had to shake his wrist discreetly afterwards. Bancroft already had his own hand on Harry's shoulder, and was ushering him towards the Quidditch Pitch, as if he thought Harry might have forgotten the way in the last decade.

_Not while I live._

"We'll ask you to fly with a partner for the first half of the exhibition," Bancroft was explaining briskly. "Standard Quidditch maneuvers, but a bit showier than usual. You and your partner will have the time to plan what you want to do, how high you want to be above the crowd, that sort of thing."

Harry glanced at him. "I thought you'd planned it already," he murmured.

Bancroft laughed. "No! We want to keep our flying wizards happy, and besides, we believe that _we're_ best off on the ground, spreading the word among the people who've come to see the exhibition. Trust us to show you off. We trust you to fly. It's a simple bargain, and a beautiful one."

Harry wondered how much of Bancroft's company he'd be able to stand. The man seemed competent at his job, certainly, but he was also part of a very different world. He'd see nothing wrong with using Harry's name or fame to promote his flying if Harry wanted them to be used that way. Of course, it wouldn't be maliciously. Bancroft would think of making money.

Harry shrugged off the impulse to complain. It wasn't as though he had much to judge Bancroft on, or as though he'd promised to fly with this group of people forever.

While he mused, Bancroft had escorted him into a new shed near the one where all the school brooms were stored. "Now," he said briskly, "we understand that, since you're new here, you wouldn't want to be partnered with a complete stranger. So we have someone who once flew with you." He nodded ahead of Harry, and Harry looked up, expecting to see a former Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw player he would have to pretend to remember.

Instead, he saw Angelina Johnson.

Angelina blinked once or twice, then came towards him with an expression of mingled welcome and curiosity. She took Harry's hand firmly enough to make him wince, and wonder whether she cracked her brooms when she flew. "Harry," she said. "A pleasure. It seems so long ago that we flew for Gryffindor, doesn't it?"

Harry nodded slowly. He understood she was making conversation on the only basis they might possibly have in common—he hadn't seen her in an even longer time than he'd missed Neville or Dean—and he appreciated that she was restraining her questions. He returned the handclasp and looked about for Bancroft, but the man had disappeared. Harry turned back to Angelina and tried to ignore the bustle around him, flyers pulling on robes and modified Quidditch gear and reciting their routines in quick undertones to their partners. "What pattern are we flying?" he asked.

"You don't have one you'd prefer?"

"Until recently, I hadn't flown for—some time," Harry said. "And I haven't played professional Quidditch, ever. You did, didn't you? For a few years."

Angelina's eyes shone now with challenge. "Yes. And I'm basing the routine on a set of plays the Magpies used when they were up against a stronger team." She flicked her wand, and Harry realized she'd cast some kind of complicated privacy spell around them, as the other voices suddenly dimmed. "You still remember Quidditch games, Harry?"

"Quidditch isn't something I could forget." Harry smiled at her, hoping she would accept the confidence he projected. At the moment, she seemed caught between happiness that she had a partner and fear that he would destroy the careful coordination of her routine.

"Good," said Angelina, with a nod. "So. Each set of partners flies with one other in the air at the same time, and the pair who does the most daring tricks catches the most attention—and, incidentally, sells the most brooms. We're entering the Pitch from the right. I thought we'd begin…"

* * *

Draco looked around the Quidditch Pitch with an expression of some bemusement. It _did_ look different when adults and not children filled the stands, on which the House colors had been folded back discreetly out of the way. Representatives of the stunt broom flyers Harry had chosen to work with circulated among the newcomers, passing out lists of what they'd see. Draco had taken one, and found, among the brooms and players he didn't care about, Harry's name.

He was on a Nimbus 2002, of all things.

Draco had curled his lip when he saw that. _Why in the world would he do that? It's not a broom suited to a Seeker. And he should have a faster broom than that, one that would show off his skill more. _

Then he had to consider that the Nimbus might be all Harry could afford. That left him with an uncomfortable feeling in his gut. He _had_ been the means of ensuring that Harry couldn't earn more money as an Auror.

_But the job was killing him. And he could have asked for my help—always. He's a stubborn git because he won't, and if he wants to be a martyr to his own pride, let him._

Draco gave his head a little shake, and did his best to calm his temper. He was here to coax Harry, court him back into closer contact. He wouldn't win that by shouting at him or staring up at him in a temper while he flew.

"I thought you said this would be interesting," Blaise whinged, and shifted beside him.

Draco gave him a patient nod. He'd brought Blaise partially because Gloriana Zabini wouldn't be here—she'd accepted an invitation from Gardenia Parkinson for the afternoon—and partially so they could talk without being overheard. And partially, of course, because Blaise was part of his plans to show Harry that Draco had a life outside him and his concerns. Draco really did intend to help his friend, but he didn't see why Blaise couldn't help him at the same time.

"It will be," he said. "Besides, you know Harry's flying today."

"I don't see how that interests _me_."

Draco leaned near him, casting one of Severus's handy spells in the meantime, just to ensure they could disappoint interested ears. "They don't have anyone of his flying skill on this Pitch right now, Blaise, I'd wager it. And so can you."

Blaise caught on quickly when he wasn't being deliberately stupid or had his wits subdued by wine, at least. He looked up. "And you think I can lay bets that—"

"On a man who hasn't flown in eleven years, and is being partnered with a complete stranger for his first exhibition, and is on a _Nimbus_?" Draco sniffed. "Of course the number of people who expect him to do well will be small. Not everyone here saw Harry play at Hogwarts." He waved his hand at the crowd around them. "And even those who did won't think he could keep up his skill if he didn't practice in the eleven years since."

"I still don't see how he _could._"

Draco pushed him. "Is that any way to talk, Blaise? This is the man you're going to lay twenty Galleons on against anyone you can find, and thus win a little independent money free of your mother."

Blaise swallowed.

"There _was_, as I recall," Draco said, examining his nails, "the matter of a Muggleborn witch you once married and were happy with."

"Don't you mention Sarah—"

"This would be the same Muggleborn witch," Draco said to his hands, "I tracked down a few weeks ago. She's living in Surrey. Unmarried, still." He looked up at Blaise. "I was saving her for an unpleasant surprise, because I was sure you would never do anything to be free of your mother."

"Give me her address," Blaise demanded, his anger making each word a separate sentence.

"When you prove that you merit it." Draco sat back, still staring at him. "When you prove that you can do something your mother's expressly forbidden you to do, and _get away_ with it. I've given you the opportunity, Blaise, but I'm not going to guide you through the crowd with your hand out."

Blaise hesitated for long moments, eyes darting back and forth between Draco and the crowd. Then he said, "You'd better not be lying about how good Potter is."

Draco laughed. "If Harry didn't believe some nonsense about his age making him unfit for a Seeker's position, the professional Quidditch teams could besiege his flat. They will anyway, after they see him fly today. He hasn't kept up with the sport. He doesn't know their spells to ease strain in the wrists and shoulders have improved." Draco shrugged. "But yes, he flies that well. I wouldn't say that just because I love him, Blaise, and I wouldn't say it just to hurt you." He gave Blaise a smile with a hint of tooth in it. "There are better ways to hurt you."

Blaise cursed at him, then rose and began to move slowly away among the crowd—listening, Draco knew, for anyone wondering about Harry Potter or the broom he rode. Blaise would subtly inflame their doubts while seeming to argue for Harry's superiority, and in the end he would secure their wagers. It was a trick he had learned early enough, and if Gloriana Zabini hadn't forbidden her son to gamble, he could have earned more money at it than he had.

Draco leaned back in his seat and looked up. Clouds drifted across the high arch of the sky, but spells were in place to insure that the spectators in the stands could still see what happened, even if a storm rolled in. A bracing wind wouldn't require spells to stop it, Draco knew; Sylvan and Bancroft would see it as just another challenge for their stunt wizards to fly against.

Several pairs came and went before Blaise returned to his seat. Draco could hear the gasps around him, but he didn't see anything remarkable, excepting one double-roll that made him sure the partners dodging around each other were going to break their necks any moment. No one was competition for Harry, at least, and when a voice enhanced with _Sonorus_ finally bellowed his name and that of Angelina Johnson, Draco sat up straighter with a fixed stare.

The air seemed to tremble, and for long, weary moments, Draco couldn't see a sign of Harry. Then he saw both him and Johnson.

They weren't flying straight, the way the other pair to come onto the Pitch had, to give everyone a good look at them before they began their tricks. Instead, they were dodging around and around each other, closely following one another's movements and exchanging places every few seconds, so that the pattern of their flight formed a double helix. Draco heard gasps again, and he understood them fully this time. Such a pattern was dependent on so many close calls, especially when the partners passed each other in the middle. One stiff gust of wind could dash them into each other. The sheer momentum could break their necks. They could grow dizzy with the constant hanging upside-down as the blood rushed to their heads, and slam into something else. Doubtless, most of the people watching Harry thought he'd been flying with Johnson for years.

_He did, but that was years ago, _Draco thought, and his heart swelled with pride as he watched. Some of the eyes on Harry were covetous. He didn't mind that, not now. Both Harry and he knew who had prior claim.

Harry and Johnson reached the far corner of the Pitch, and rolled together one final time. Draco thought they'd to snap out of the spiral and perform some feat further apart from one another, since they'd stayed so close so far.

Instead, Johnson put out one arm, and Harry put out one arm, and they caught and arrested each other's movement, in a spin so sharp that Draco expected to hear the crunch and crash of bone any second. The next instant, they sprang apart from each other like bolos around a single central spike, and flew wildly in opposite directions.

A great shout rose from the throats around him, and Draco found himself shouting, too. Even Blaise was applauding, and, by the movement of his lips, apologizing for his former doubt in Harry.

Johnson arrested her flight with a motion of her broom that Draco only wished he could imitate, and held something up. It was the shape and size of a Snitch, but glowed brilliantly, to give the audience an opportunity to see it. She tossed it into the air, and it quickly became obvious that it couldn't fly like a Snitch; it plunged.

From the opposite side of the Pitch and much higher in the air than Johnson, Harry went after it.

His dive stole Draco's heart and his breath in one simple motion. So clean, so swift, so incredibly falcon-like, _down_ he dropped, and _down_, and the air was going to snatch his stupid brave head from his shoulders, and God, Draco was going to talk to him long and hard about the fright Harry had given him if the idiot survived—

And then Harry rolled along above the grass, in another twisting spiral, and rose again with the Snitch-like object in one hand.

The crowd went mad, and Draco suspected Blaise had won his bet. He felt more than satisfied with what he'd won, himself, and he was looking forward to the individual part of the exhibition even more.

* * *

Harry had grinned at Angelina when they'd both landed, and she'd shaken his hand again, this time with full confidence. Bancroft had been in raptures over their performance, and had hinted that it had encouraged several of the people there to already inquire after the Moonbright, the broom Angelina was riding, and the Nimbus. Harry could shrug when he heard that. If someone wanted to buy a Nimbus in imitation of him, that was all right. It wasn't as though he'd only ever ridden that kind of broom, or cared about its success to the exclusion of all others.

_Imagine what you could do if you had a Flameflare._

Harry rolled his eyes at the suspicious Slytherin voice. It seemed to have Draco's taste for luxury, too, which was annoying. He would just have to get used to living within more modest means, that was all. He could _do_ that. The few weeks of too-pleasant living in the Manor hadn't ruined him.

He and Angelina wished each other luck in the individual part of the exhibition, and Harry sat down to wait until it was his turn to perform. People stared at him several times, but no one came over to try and talk to him. That suited Harry. They were probably thinking about their own routines.

Long minutes of cheering and swishing flight passed, and, once, the sharp crash of a breaking broom. Harry winced and rose to his feet, wondering if he should do something. Then he saw the Healers Bancroft kept hastening out to the stands, and he sat down again. They would deal with any injuries better than he could. He only kept victims injured in his cases quiet until someone could send for the Healers, anyway.

_No, you don't,_ said the suspicious Slytherin voice. _You're not an Auror anymore, remember?_

Harry hissed under his breath, and went back to waiting for his name to be called. When it was, he stood with calm determination.

He didn't belong to anyone or anything except himself. He didn't work for the Ministry anymore. He didn't _have_ to go back to Draco. The course of his future life, and his future friendships, and his future healing, was for him to decide.

And right now, he was in the air, and there was no activity he loved so much as flying.

He heard the voices roaring, but he tuned them out the way he'd once done when playing Quidditch. He had to find the Snitch, then, while maintaining a surface awareness of Bludgers and the opposing Seeker and Chasers and his other teammates. Now, he would keep alert in case someone else flew near him or he ran into the hoops of the Pitch, and of course he knew where the ground was, but his focus was the motion of his body and the broom.

There were things he wanted to try.

First, he performed the somersault he'd tried the other day, head over handle, bristles over heels, and was pleased to note he was less dizzy now. He had time to notice the way that ground took the place of sky for a moment, and the way that his knees gripped the broom as if it were Draco.

He rolled to come back over, and then went into a series of sideways rolls, his body at a steep angle to the Nimbus. He could hear both magic and wind straining as they flowed through the bristles, but he had faith in the broom, and, even more, in his own muscles. This was less demanding than many of the physical tasks they'd had him perform as an Auror: holding down prisoners desperate to escape, pinpoint-precise Apparition, running obstacle courses.

When he came out of the rolls, Harry had to fight his own swirling blood to reorient himself, but, once he did, he knew what he wanted to do. With a faint smile, he rose to his feet and balanced on the broom's handle. Applause assaulted his ears. It was a trick other flyers could do, but relatively few of them would dare, especially since the wind was rising and the clouds growing thicker.

Harry cocked his head. Calculations he barely understood raced through his head, touching on the speed of the wind, the soreness of his limbs from his earlier tricks, the momentum of the broom, and a dozen other factors. He waited calmly, not trying to keep track of all of them, and at last he knew, as he had always known where the Snitch was going to be, that he could perform the trick he wanted.

He waited a moment for the audience to settle. Yes, he cared more about pleasing his own sense of daring and fun than about them, but he might as well give them a chance to be shocked.

Then he kicked hard at the broom, catching it with one foot to turn it in the desired direction, and flung himself backwards over the bristles and into the open air.

* * *

Draco's brain turned to ice when he saw Harry falling. Blaise started to his feet, an oath on his lips, but Draco couldn't move. The whole world was whiteness, and coldness, and that single tumbling shape. Blood flowed down his hands; he didn't know why, and he couldn't care.

_Harry, Harry, Harry lost his balance—_

And then the shouts of panic became shouts of laughter and amazement and awe, and Draco saw what had happened, too late to enjoy it. Harry must have kicked the Nimbus before he began his fall. Caught by the wind and its own momentum, it turned around and came up beside and a bit beneath Harry, instead of hovering in place or tearing off in a random direction. Harry put out his right arm and snagged it around the broom's handle in front of the bristles, then rolled around the tail in that movement Draco remembered so well from his own Quidditch Pitch and flung a leg over as well, hanging upside-down. A moment later, the second leg followed, and Harry waved with his free hand.

Blaise's hand slammed into Draco's shoulder. "He's something," he shouted, his face flushed, "that lover of yours!"

Draco slowly unclenched his hands. The list of names and brooms he'd received when he came to Hogwarts was cutting into his palms, and he flexed his fingers several times, eyes never leaving Harry. "Quite," he said.

No use to pretend he hadn't been frightened, and wasn't angry now. Harry was whipping his broom around in ridiculous poses, and didn't look the least bit sorry. He would probably try something else as stupid in a moment. He couldn't have _known_ the broom would be there, and if he tried to say he had, Draco would claim him for a liar.

And no use to pretend he wasn't proud, either, and didn't have the urge to rise to his feet and crow at the rest of the stands: _Did you see him? Did you see what he did, my mad, glorious idiot?_

There was no doubt that everyone had. Many people were still screaming, but others were silent in rapture.

"I'm afraid you won't be able to bet on Harry as often anymore, Blaise," Draco managed to say, with what he thought was composure. "After today, no one will believe he can't fly without a broom, if he wishes."

"I'll make enough to begin a new life, if not continue it," Blaise said, voice rich with satisfaction. "Besides, it was worth it to see him fly." He touched Draco's arm lightly, grinning. "You weren't lying when you said this was interesting."

* * *

Harry paused for another photograph, and then strode determinedly out of the temporary shed, Nimbus over his shoulder. People tried to follow him. They looked both surprised and put out when Harry's magic swirled up around his body and pushed back at them, ensuring they stayed in one place. Harry just told them, over and over in a polite but firm voice, to talk to Bancroft; he was the one who could answer their questions about how long Harry had been flying in exhibitions and why he'd chosen to do what he had. Bancroft couldn't answer all those questions, of course, but he would come up with pretty lies.

He'd been paid already, and congratulated Angelina, who would barely hear of it, but wanted to tell him how wonderfully stupid he'd been to jump off his broom like that. He had no reason to stay any longer.

"Harry."

The suspicious Slytherin voice had evidently been waiting for its cue. _What does it say, that your magic didn't act to keep _him_ away from you?_

Harry turned around, with a shallow nod to Draco. Draco had Blaise not far behind him, who looked as if he were dreaming of Galleons, and had a trunk hovering beside him to prove it.

"Hello, Draco," Harry said, guarded as he had to be. "I had no idea that you knew there was an exhibition here today."

"A bird brought me the news," Draco said airily.

Harry felt his insides clench. _Damn! _He'd thought he'd merely dropped the letter he'd written off the table on which it lay, and that Draco's owl had left without waiting for a reply, but it seemed that Draco's owl had taken his letter instead. All those confessions Draco's eye wasn't meant to see—

And now he would lord it over Harry, use those words to hurt him, use—

Draco smiled at him, and then turned around and held out a piece of parchment to Blaise. "And here," he said. "Since you were good enough to bet on Harry of your own will and _finally_ do something about freeing yourself from your mother's control, here's Sarah's address."

Blaise's face brightened with hope, and he snatched the parchment. Harry stared. He didn't know who Sarah was, not for certain, but he recognized the name as one which Blaise had shouted when he dared to defy Mrs. Zabini.

"Thank you, Draco," Blaise murmured. "I won't forget this."

Draco snorted. "Just keep deserving it. Besides, this was my chance to settle a sort of score with your mother."

Blaise smiled as if he knew better, and then turned around and hurried out towards the Hogsmeade road. Which left Harry alone with Draco, or, if not alone, at least with other people held at a safe distance by his magic and the privacy spell that Draco cast a moment later.

"What was all that about?" Harry asked finally.

"I do have friends beyond you," Draco said mildly. "I gave Blaise a chance to prove himself to me, that he deserved my help. And he did. He could easily have backslid and denied himself the chance, you know. He's done it before. I wait a few months between each attempt. This is only the second one that's truly worked." He studied Harry intently, as if he were looking for signs of damage from the stunts he'd done.

Harry cleared his throat. No sense keeping what they both knew silent. "You read my letter," he said. "My—confession."

"Yes," Draco said softly.

Harry growled under his breath. He hated being left this vulnerable. And, even if Draco wasn't going to lord it over him, Harry had at least expected gloating. He'd partially agreed with Draco about the Dursleys, after all.

"I don't wish to hurt my friends," Draco said. "That's the last thing I ever want to do, Harry." He moved lightly and quickly forward and, before Harry could stop him, laid his hand on his cheek. It wasn't gloved, which meant Harry could feel the heat of the palm and the tingling sensation it spread throughout his body. "Imagine how much less I want to hurt the man I'm in love with," Draco said.

Harry hadn't cast the ward that protected him from Draco's touch that day; he'd seen no need, since he didn't expect to meet Draco at the exhibition. Now his body was letting him know how much it had missed Draco's touch and how much it wanted things back to normal. The suspicious Slytherin voice was snickering madly in the back of his mind.

Harry cleared his throat and managed to step away. "If you think I'm going to come groveling back to you—"

"There'll be no groveling, and you have to come back of your own free will," said Draco. "There'll be no invitations this time, no carefully penned apologies designed to entice you back in. Simply know that the wards at the Manor are always open to you, and the house-elves will welcome you. Severus won't interfere. Nor will my mother, since I've exiled her from coming to the Manor for a year, and cast a spell that will protect you from bodily harm from that quarter." Draco's face darkened for a moment. "Though you seem determined to court that, yourself."

The rage was tempered, Harry realized, watching him closely. Draco was angry, but he wasn't about to start shouting. It was more as though he wanted Harry to know he was angry, and that was all.

As if—

As if he were offering Harry the choice to come back, the freedom to continue their connection, instead of insisting he had no choice.

Hunger both physical and mental convulsed Harry's body. He wanted to go back, he wanted that with all his soul.

But he couldn't trust Draco so quickly and completely. A trial of time was necessary. He might decide to gloat tomorrow, after all, or grow angry when Harry did something else that, as Draco saw it, threatened his life.

"Thank you," he said, which might have been a reply to everything Draco said or nothing, and forced himself to turn away and continue walking.

Draco followed him, but only as far as the edge of Hogwarts's anti-Apparition wards, where he nodded at Harry in a friendly way and vanished. Harry stood still for a moment, and then shook his head like a horse.

_It could be a trick. He lied to you before. And he did read that letter, though he had to know that you didn't send it willingly._

He'd wait. He'd see.

He Apparated back to his flat, put his Galleons in a safe place, and tried to ignore how lonely and comfortless the few rooms seemed. It wasn't as though he had to live in the Manor to be happy, and it wasn't as though he needed posh elf-cooked meals to eat; corned beef sandwiches were enough for him.

_But do they make you happy? _the suspicious Slytherin voice prodded.

Harry snarled hard enough that the voice fled to the back of his mind, and went to put his Nimbus away.


	58. More Confrontations

_Chapter 58—More Confrontations_

Someone knocked insistently on the door of his flat. Harry opened one bleary eye and blinked at nothing in particular. Then he rolled over, as the knocking continued, and cast _Tempus_. He'd been up late examining the accounts for his Gringotts vault, and determining exactly how long the money he'd saved from Auror work would last him, given the purchase of the Nimbus, the money he spent on clothes and food and the Floo connection, and the rent he paid on his flat. He could survive easily for about six more months, but then the Galleons would grow tight, and he couldn't afford extravagant purchases. The restlessness from doing nothing was a worse problem than the lack of money, of course.

It was only six in the morning. Harry blinked in astonishment. The knocking continued.

Irritated, he put aside his blankets and went to the door. If this was Draco, he had better have a _damn_ good reason for being over here so early.

_He probably does, _Harry thought as he pulled on his glasses and lengthened his strides. _Maybe he's injured. Maybe Narcissa is injured. Maybe—_

And then he paused, as he realized that the wards would have told him if it were Draco standing outside his door, and they hadn't. They didn't recognize the magic of the person there.

Harry paused, then drew his wand and conjured a glamour over his pyjamas to make them look like casual robes before he opened the door. He was confident he was faster than any enemy who might have tracked him down here, and that he could duck out of sight if it was a photographer.

Snape glared sullenly at him from the hallway. "Does it always take you this ridiculous amount of time to answer your door, Potter?" he demanded.

"Do you always call at this ridiculous hour, Snape?" Harry leaned his shoulder on the door, and maintained as strict a control over himself as he could. Snape might have come to bring bad news about Draco, but Harry didn't think so. Draco would have sent almost any messenger rather than him, given how much Harry and his former Professor hated each other. "What did you want?"

"Not about to invite me in and offer me tea?" Snape's face must have permanently frozen in its sour expression long ago, Harry thought. "It is six-o'clock in the morning, after all."

Harry drew his breath to keep his temper, and said, "No. I reckon you're well-supplied with herbal teas of your own, and I don't fancy stumbling over nasty little traps in my flat for the next week." He narrowed his eyes at Snape. "Say what you came to say, and get it over with."

"If you want Draco to be happy, you'll stay away from him."

_Well, at least he's succinct, _Harry thought. "Why?"

"Can you _ask_, Potter?" Snape's glance, like his voice, was long and cold and scornful. "He's spent far too much time already on you—time and money and attention. He neglects his other friends. He's always in a temper when I talk to him. He had a calm life, including a reconciliation with his mother, before you intruded."

"It really wasn't my choice to intrude."

"No. That was unfortunate charity on Draco's part, which I hope he won't be inclined to repeat." Snape leaned closer to him, though he stayed just beyond the distance at which a ward could snap out and sting him. "You're not worthy of him, Potter. You never were, and you never will be. Draco has a depth and a greatness of soul you will never discover."

Harry remained silent.

"I was his confidante after the war," Snape hissed at him, as if Harry had asked. "I know more about his trials and sufferings than he has yet confessed to you, and I know how hard he fought to change from the boy he had been to the man he is now. If you stay with him, you chance undoing all that work."

"Why?"

Snape sneered at him. "Do you imagine I will betray Draco's secrets to _you_?"

"Without you doing that, it's hard to know why you want me to stay away." Harry scratched behind his ear, and stifled a yawn. Snape would take that as an appearance of weakness, and Harry had been subjected to enough tirades for this morning. "Draco wants me there with him. He made sure I was in the Manor and prevented me from leaving. Why should I—"

"Yet you stay away from him now," Snape hissed. "You are ready to walk away from him the moment he does something your fussy Gryffindor morals don't approve. Draco deserves more loyalty than that."

"You walked away from a man who employed the same methods on Muggles and wizards that Draco did," Harry said quietly. "Are those morals really fussy _or_ Gryffindor, Snape?"

"You have no right to speak to me of what I have been." Snape's hand twitched, but didn't quite drift to his left arm.

Harry surveyed him in silence. Really, he had to almost pity the man. Snape was a brilliant brewer and researcher, courageous, loyal to Dumbledore to the last, and intelligent enough to survive acting as an agent for both the mad Voldemort and the suspicious Order of the Phoenix. But he had never got over his old schoolboy grudges. They could make him hate and mistreat a child of eleven he'd never seen before, and decide that that child, even seventeen years later and changed as much as Draco had changed, was still his enemy.

_Snape's biggest problem is that he doesn't see what's there with me, but only what he wants to see. And he seems to think that no one but him has ever suffered, and no one but him has any right to complain, as if bullying in Hogwarts could excuse everything._

"If Draco wants me to leave," he said, "he'll have to tell me himself."

"You stay at a distance from him."

Harry lifted his chin. "That doesn't mean our connection is severed, Snape."

"If you care for him, sever it."

"No. I won't do it just to please you." Harry started to shut his door.

He didn't close it before Snape sneered and said softy, "How very like a Potter. You care about nothing save your own image and your own comfort, forsaking the image and comfort of those you love."

Harry badly wanted to ask what about his father had made Snape say that, but he knew he wouldn't hear the truth, only whatever warped and twisted version of it Snape had come up with. He ignored it, and finished closing the door.

Snape started knocking again. Harry put up a silence spell, and went back to bed.

_Idiot, imagining that he could frighten me away. His impression of me really hasn't changed since I was a student._

* * *

"Mistress Theresa is here, Master Malfoy." Trippy was embarrassed, holding her ears as if she didn't know what punishment she deserved but would think it up and apply it to her ears as soon as Draco acknowledged her message.

"It's all right, Trippy," Draco said. "I didn't rescind her invitation." He put his letter carefully aside, satisfied. Blaise had written to tell him that he'd found Sarah, and she'd agreed to meet him. Though she was wary and cautious yet, Blaise had high hopes of breaking through her reserve.

It was boring in the Manor now, without Harry. Draco had other things he could do, though, and in fact, he'd been planning to go to the Parkinsons' house today and view Gardenia's latest prodigy. A discussion with Theresa would be sufficiently diverting for him to attend to it.

Trippy brought Theresa to the library on his orders, and when Draco came in, she stood in front of the fireplace, hands extended to the flames. She always seemed to relish heat. She turned around when she heard Draco's footsteps, but didn't abandon the hearth, simply inclined her head.

"Won't you have a seat?" Draco asked, but Theresa shook her head.

"I don't intend to stay long, Draco," she said. Draco hadn't seen her so sorrowful since the day he burst out to her with an account of what his childhood had really been like. "I came to see if it was true, and Harry is no longer staying in the Manor with you."

"It's true," Draco said. "We argued, but we haven't fallen out completely. He's still welcome to visit here any time he likes. At the moment, I'm giving him the space and the freedom he seems to need; he'll be the one to decide how this continues." He relaxed against the wall, though it wasn't easy with Theresa so solemn.

Theresa sighed. "I worry for him, on his own and with no friends he has strongly connected with."

"He did invite friends to a dinner party we had not long ago," Draco reassured her. "Neville Longbottom and Dean Thomas, old yearmates of his from Gryffindor at Hogwarts. I think he's trying to reestablish connect with them. And he flew in an exhibition at Hogwarts, in front of hundreds of people. The _Daily Prophet_ should be full of that shortly, if not already."

"I did read an article about that." Theresa shifted anxiously from foot to foot. "I simply wonder whether he is yet ready to end our sessions. He never discussed his childhood in detail with me." She gave Draco a piercing look that, he supposed, hinted she knew something about the Dursleys. "And I wonder how deeply your quarrel has affected him."

"Deeply, or I wouldn't be in love with him." Draco raised an eyebrow at her. "Really, Theresa, I'm not trying to hide some dangerous and deadly secret from you. I'll give you his address if you want, but I think he's done the majority of his healing."

"It's not normal for someone to go from years of emotional isolation to complete independence," Theresa reminded him.

Draco laughed. "This is Harry Potter we're talking about. If his healing was any less extraordinary than the rest of his life, I'd worry."

"Still."

Draco nodded, and wrote down Harry's address for her. "I'd wait until a few hours after this," he warned her, even as he gave her the parchment. "He's not usually in the best mood in the mornings, and he'll be tired from the exhibition."

"I remember." Theresa nodded at him. "I hope that both of you are what the other needs. Good day, Draco."

Draco sent Trippy to escort her out, and then wrote a letter, to send off with his eagle-owl. The few hours he'd advised Theresa to wait should give the bird time enough to fly to Harry's flat.

He'd promised himself he'd hold aloof, and not send Harry any more invitations to the Manor until Harry chose it, but this was no invitation. It merely warned him Theresa was coming.

Draco was absolutely determined to show Harry that Harry could trust him.

_And, hopefully, surrender this stubbornness soon enough, and come back home where he belongs._

* * *

Harry gave Theresa a reserved smile when he opened his door to her, and invited her into the flat, and offered her tea. She was too polite to express dismay at his home, though Harry could see it in the way her eyes anxiously scanned the walls and floors as if looking for a clue that he was going mad. Harry sat across from her, and drank his own tea. He'd received the letter from Draco a few minutes earlier, and decided instantly what he would tell Theresa.

It had taken him longer to overcome the wonder that Draco had written to him about this, and to ponder what that meant.

"I wondered, Harry," Theresa said, "if you would like to continue our sessions. Though your recovery was amazingly rapid, I don't think it's complete, and there are many sections of your life that we never discussed, only your most immediate problems and pressing griefs."

Harry smiled at her. "Thank you, but no, I don't plan to attend sessions with you again."

Theresa set her cup down on the arm of her chair and examined him carefully. "You have, then, a Healer whom you prefer?"

Harry sipped and gave her a blank look. "I'm done with therapy."

"But, surely—"

"I only attended sessions with you because I had no choice," Harry pointed out. "And I can't deny that they became important to my health, and that you helped me. Thank you. But now I have the choice. And I don't think I'm in any immediate danger of backsliding, and I'm not lonely and isolated in the same way I was before. I don't want to talk to a Healer about my problems." _I want to talk to Draco, _he thought, but Draco should be the first one to hear that.

Theresa studied him in pensive silence. Harry didn't think what she found in his face convinced her, but she finished drinking and then rose slowly to her feet. "If you're sure—"

"I am." Harry escorted her to the door. "Thank you for coming. I do mean it. You helped me. I know this started as a favor you owed the Malfoy family, but you did your best for me beyond that. If you'd like to be paid in return—"

Theresa smiled at last, and patted his arm. "No, thank you." She hesitated on the threshold, though. "If you're sure," she repeated.

"I am," Harry said, and watched her out of sight down the hallway.

Then he leaned against the door and gave his head a brisk shake.

Draco and Theresa had helped give him his life back. But he deserved the right to live his life the way he wanted, because it was _his_. He wouldn't give up his hours in slavery to the Ministry. He wouldn't give them up in slavery to Draco and Theresa, either. He would only make compromises that he truly _wanted_ to make. He wouldn't feel forced to them, because he didn't have to.

And, right now, he wanted to think a little more, carefully and rationally, about whether he could trust Draco.

He missed him, that was undeniable. But Harry wanted to make the choice on principles, and not just the urgings of his imagination and his body. Their argument had been one of principles, after all.

He put up silencing spells around his door again, warded the window against owls, made sure the Floo connection was blocked, and sat back to consider.


	59. Out and About

_Chapter 59—Out and About_

Draco rose to his feet, applauding, with a genuine smile on his face. Gardenia Parkinson's newest prodigy really _was_ a prodigy, not just a friend she was trying to arrange a little more notice for. Of course, she had a better record of choosing truly talented artists than some of her friends did, but it wasn't often Draco enjoyed an exhibition as much as he'd enjoyed this one.

_Other than a certain flying exhibition, the other day—_

Draco shoved the thought firmly out of his head, and nodded to Gardenia, who'd advanced to meet him. "Well, what do you think, my dear?" she asked, rising on her toes to kiss his cheek. The faint, subtle smell of her perfume swirled around her.

"Truly talented," Draco said, and looked again to the young wizard, who was receiving several compliments from enamored members of the audience. He took them coolly, which Draco approved of. Constant praise was enough to turn anyone's head, as he well knew. This wizard had invented something called "swift-sculpture," which allowed him to create a statue in a few hours, working with magic to, as he said, "feel out the art inside the stone." Draco would have believed it was impossible if he hadn't seen it happen right in front of his eyes.

"I'm glad that you think so." Gardenia put a light hand on his arm. "When are you going to bring your Harry to see me again? He seemed a sensible young man, from what I could see of him."

To Gardenia, Draco had no problem telling the truth, especially since she had a permanent spell cast on her turquoise bracelets at all times, which prevented anyone who stood elsewhere in the room from overhearing a whispered conversation unless she wished them to overhear. "What the _Prophet_ says is actually true, this time," he replied. "We did quarrel."

"Oh, Draco, how disappointing."

From her, Draco could accept that. After all, it was how he felt himself. Supposedly arguments with one's lover were character-building, but it had been a week, now, since Harry had last visited the Manor. He had kept busy since then—staying in contact with Blaise, who had persuaded his Sarah to leave England with him; attending several of Gardenia's exhibitions; visiting Hogwarts to indulge in a few private melancholy reflections; and directing Trippy's refurbishment of the Manor's dining rooms and eastern wing. So he wasn't moping.

But he wished that Harry would make up his mind and come back as soon as possible, damn it. He could have done without the character-building portions of the argument in exchange.

"My dear, what _did_ you do to Gloriana Zabini?"

Draco looked over his shoulder. Gloriana was coming towards him, her lips set in a thin line. Draco shivered a bit. Her rage must be intense, if she was willing to show it to him in public.

Of course, he was not without weapons of his own.

"Helped her son to escape her permanently," he told Gardenia, his eyes on Gloriana all the while. "Encouraged him to gamble, which won him a little independent money, and then put him in contact with that Muggleborn witch he married some time ago."

Gardenia's hand tightened on his arm. Draco looked back at her, and surprised an expression of both shock and delight on her face.

"Draco, darling, you _didn't._"

Draco winked at her, and kissed her hand. "I did. I've given him more than one chance in the past, and he only ever took it once—and then he behaved disgustingly and gave up all claims to my help for a while. But this time, I enumerated the advantages of such a course, and he actually listened."

"You are a fine example of Slytherin compassion," Gardenia said, and lowered the spell on the bracelets so that more than one person could hear them. Draco felt the curious stares from around the room, but just now, he was more interested in the way Gloriana's head jerked up.

"Thank you," he said, with one more wink, and then moved over to confront Mrs. Zabini. Gardenia had done him the favor of attracting attention. If Gloriana did something against him now, in public, it would have to be extraordinarily subtle, and if she behaved badly enough, she stood a good chance of never being invited back to the Parkinsons' house again.

"I wish to know where you have put my son," Gloriana told him, without any of the word games she usually played.

"Blaise is a grown man," Draco drawled. "He doesn't owe anyone else an account of his actions."

Gloriana understood the message in those words well enough. He was on Blaise's side, not hers. Her face became tranquil with anger.

"I will find him," she said. "And be assured, Mr. Malfoy, as you have embarrassed me, I can embarrass you."

Draco chuckled under his breath. "What would life in our social circles be, without the threat of embarrassment?" He cocked his head. "If you want to oppose me, Mrs. Zabini, then I welcome you to do so. At the least, you can be entertaining when you set your mind to it."

Of course, that denied any value to her actions other than entertainment, and Gloriana was wise enough to hear the unspoken words. She made a curtsey, very low, never taking her eyes from him.

"You are experienced and clever at survival in these circles," she said. "Of course, others, even some who have lived a little time in Malfoy Manor, are not."

The people eagerly listening might well have thought she referred to one of Draco's lower-class lovers whom he'd picked up, toyed with for a while, and then dropped. Draco knew she was referring to Harry.

For a moment, he let his mask drop. Gloriana actually took a step back from the anger in his eyes.

"Touch him," said Draco, "even indirectly, and you will be mourning that I did not give you as easy a fate as I gave my mother."

He turned away from Gloriana. He doubted Narcissa had told her about the punishment he'd put on her, the curse, and that silence would only increase Gloriana's apprehension.

_Good. Let her be frightened._

She might do what she wished to him, or try. If she touched Harry, Draco would indeed fight to defend him.

But he could do that much more easily if Harry would simply come back, forsake his little fit of temper, and live in the Manor.

_Make up your mind, Harry._

* * *

"And this," Neville said, opening the door to the accompaniment of a myriad scents, "is the house for my experimental plants."

Harry followed him into the greenhouse, looking in several directions as he tried to take in everything at once. The walls crawled with bright flowers he supposed might be orchids, but they had longer stalks than he thought those blossoms had, and one of them looked like it'd been crossed with a mandrake. It clasped the trunk of a long, sinuous tree, one branch of which writhed down to examine Harry. Harry started when he realized it was speaking Parseltongue. He hissed cautiously back, and the tree danced in delight.

Neville laughed beside him. Harry turned around. He could see how his old friend had received those laugh lines, now. Everything about the greenhouses seemed to please him.

"You _bred_ these?" he asked, turning back to examine a huge, showy blue flower in the middle tub of the greenhouse, among smaller and greener plants that seemed designed to frame it. The flower's petals tangled with the others' leaves like ribbons, and gleamed white on the very tips. Harry could smell it now, a scent so soft and enticing that he had to resist the impulse to step forward and touch the flower. "I'm impressed."

As he still tended to do when receiving compliments, Neville coughed in embarrassment, and said, "Yes. That one's mostly for the scent and the color—just to look nice, you know. Not for any useful purpose."

"Being beautiful is still a purpose," Harry murmured, and had to shake his head against the thought of Draco that came to him. Draco was beautiful, yes, but he was far more than that. Harry thought there wasn't a true resemblance between Draco and the plant; it was just that thoughts of him crept into every hour of Harry's life over the past week, including the ones he tried to spend peacefully at a friend's house.

"Thank you, but the one I wanted you to see is over here," Neville said, and tugged gently on his elbow.

Harry let himself be pulled along. He'd had a pleasant time at the Longbottoms' house so far. He'd had tea with Neville, and told a circumscribed account of his life since Hogwarts and his troubles with Draco, and listened to Neville's stories of _his_ life, and talked with Neville's grandmother, who unfortunately little resembled the intimidating woman Harry had met a few times. The Lestranges' attack had done its damage, and left Neville as Augusta Longbottom's main attendant.

But it hadn't embittered Neville. Harry didn't know if anything _could_ do that. He'd been delighted to welcome Harry, full of sympathy when Harry talked about life as an Auror, and even quietly thankful that Harry had put Bellatrix Lestrange in prison. And he'd spoken about himself in the same way.

He'd suffered, he'd been through losses because of Voldemort just as Harry had, but he hadn't stopped living.

Harry had felt sometimes weak when looking at him, and sometimes thankful that Draco had showed up before it was too late, and sometimes sad and thoughtful. At least he had a chance of living now, himself, even if it had come ten years later than Neville's chance.

"This is the plant I wanted to show you."

Harry leaned forward. The plant Neville pointed to was considerably smaller than the blue flower they'd passed earlier, or the tree with the serpent branch. But Harry thought, with one glance, that he liked it better. The leaves were a deep, intense green, the shade he'd always seen in his mind when he thought of peace. They were shaped like open hands, but the resemblance wasn't as creepy as he would have thought it would be if someone described it to him. Instead, the hands invited him to touch and clasp them. He glanced at Neville.

"You can touch it," said Neville.

He was smiling in a slightly odd way, but Harry didn't think about it with permission granted. He reached out and ran one finger down the center of a leaf. At once, the hand closed around his finger. He blinked, but felt no sting or sensation of pain, only an immense calm. He held still.

"I don't have a name for this yet," Neville said. "I bred it out of a plant that used to be called a panacea plant, and some really _smart_ flowers from the western coast of North America. It's meant to soothe fears and take away problems—to be a companion to you, really. You talk to it, and it sways. You touch it, and it responds."

"It isn't swaying when you talk," Harry pointed out, only to pause as his words made the leaves reach towards him.

"It's too used to my voice," said Neville, with a smile. "And I've taken care not to touch its leaves, because it attaches itself to the first person who touches them. It likes you, Harry." He picked up the plant's pot, carefully. "And now it's yours."

"I couldn't take—"

"Oh, yes you can."

Harry looked at the expression of determination on Neville's face and had to concede it wasn't very likely he could get out of the greenhouse without the plant. It seemed wrong, though, that a friend he'd barely thought of and never visited in the last decade was giving him a gift on his first visit. "I don't know anything about caring for it," he tried.

"A cup of water every day," Neville said calmly. "Pellets of a food I'll give you. And your time and attention." He grinned. "If you leave your flat and go back to Malfoy Manor, make sure to take the plant with you."

Harry ignored his own blush and carefully gathered the pot into his arms, staring at Neville's face all the while. "I don't know what I can do to repay you."

Neville cocked his head and gave him a melancholy smile. "Don't be such a stranger, Harry. Don't stay so much in your flat that I never see you."

"I won't do that," Harry said firmly. "I've changed my mind about the way I live. I've already visited Dean this week, you know, and I've talked with Angelina Johnson about whether it's really advantageous to work as a stunt flyer with Sylvan and Bancroft." He started as the plant's leaves patted at his hair and ears; it was making sounds of pleasure like little purrs.

Neville's smile was even wider and more handsome than before, and Harry found himself wondering why he wasn't married yet. "Good! That gives me some hope." He paused, then added slyly, "And if I send an owl to you, should I use your flat address, or Malfoy Manor?"

Harry coughed. "I won't know until next week, at the very earliest," he said. "I—well, I've made a decision, but Draco might not have made the same one."

"He will," Neville said confidently. "I never saw a man more madly in love in my life, Harry. Did you _see_ the way he looked at you during that dinner party?"

Harry coughed again. "Yes, but he has his pride, too, and he might not want to sacrifice it for what I ask him."

"You're too good to make him sacrifice everything." Neville looked as smug as a cat. "I'll send the owls to the Manor, then."

No matter what Harry tried to persuade him of, he would neither change his mind nor take the plant back, and when Harry Apparated back to his flat, it was with the pot in his arms and an enormous bag of plant food slung over one shoulder.

* * *

Draco had to go to the front door, because he couldn't get any sense out of Trippy. The little house-elf had appeared to him in the middle of his bedroom, where he'd gone to write a letter to Blaise, and practically turned somersaults around him while squealing with excitement. Draco had wondered if Millicent had come back to visit; she'd been one of Trippy's favorite people for years.

But, instead, he opened the door, and found Harry standing casually on the step, his arms folded but his gaze clear and direct.

Draco licked his lips. His heart was pounding. He'd wanted this to happen for a week, and, now that it had, he didn't really know how to deal with it.

"Can I come in?" Harry sounded amused now, damn him.

"Come in?" Draco asked blankly, and then cursed himself for sounding like an idiot. "Of course," he said, and moved out of the way. Harry nodded to him, and sauntered in.

Then he turned, reached out, put a hand on the back of Draco's neck, and tugged him into a kiss.

It was surprisingly forceful but disappointingly chaste, and Draco didn't have a chance to respond before it was over. He pulled back, gasping slightly, and faced Harry. Harry gave him a small, sweet smile.

"I hope you're planning on repeating that," Draco told him, his hands itching with the need to reach out and drag Harry against him. His body had got used to having an energetic, clever, and curious lover again, lately. That meant it missed the sex, too, and Draco's right hand was no longer an adequate substitute.

"I am," said Harry, "but I think we should talk first." He tossed his head. His eyes never left Draco's face. "I've got a great deal to ask you, and to say." He paused. "And to ask forgiveness for, too. I made a mistake in abandoning my trust of you so quickly."

An emotion spread through Draco, slowly enough that he didn't recognize it at first. He even nodded and invited Harry to the library before he knew what it was.

Joy, deep and long-burning.


	60. In Praise of Uncertainty

_Chapter 60—In Praise of Uncertainty_

Harry tried to hold a calm expression on his face as he and Draco sat down, once again in the library, but it was hard. This could mean the end of everything, if he wasn't careful. He'd come here intending to reconcile, but if he said the wrong thing, then Draco might take it as a worse insult than anything he'd offered so far—

He let out a sharp breath and shook his head at himself. With the decision he'd made, uncertainty should be the _last_ thing he feared.

"Do you need some water, Harry?" Draco's concerned voice interrupted his reverie. Harry looked up to see him leaning forward from the chair opposite him.

And his mood changed again, from simple fear to the same mixture of calculation and daring that had let him plunge from his broom in front of hundreds of spectators. If he did that, he could surely do this.

"No, thanks," he said, and sat up straighter. Draco mimicked him, eyes hopeful but narrowed. Harry nodded a bit. _Well, that's how it should be. He couldn't give in and simply accept what I told him, any more than I could just accept that he tortured the Dursleys._

"I came here because I do want to reconcile with you," he said. "Move back into the Manor, live with you, and—" He swallowed several times. He'd actually practiced this speech before he arrived, in fear he'd forget it, but he found it hard to say with Draco's eyes piercing him through.

Draco leaned forward and clasped his hand, squeezing hard enough to remind Harry of Angelina's grasp. "Just say what you mean," he muttered.

"And try to love you as best I can," said Harry, and ignored the expression of triumph slipping over Draco's face. The next was the part of the speech Draco might hate him for. "That means I need some things from you, too."

"Name them."

_Shit._ Harry hadn't counted on the tone of Draco's voice sending so much heat to his groin that it was hard to concentrate. He licked his lips, breathed shallowly for a moment, and then said, "First, I want to trust you again. I think I was wrong to stop trusting you so quickly last time."

"Of course you were." Draco's face was alight, his gray eyes so bright that to look at them nearly hurt, like looking at sunlight reflected off ice. He leaned nearer, and Harry didn't think he was sitting in his own chair any more, though he was still in a crouched position. His body shook with what could be excitement—

Harry pushed the thought away as hard as he could. The last thing he wanted was to tumble into bed with Draco when this argument, or reconciliation, was still only half- finished.

_Though tumbling into bed with him when it's finished—_

Then he had to convince _that_ thought to leave him alone, too, and by the time he did, Draco's face was a few inches from his, breath soft and warm. And, God, his _eyes_, his _eyes_ were so bright.

Harry ordered himself to stop being a mooning idiot right now. That seemed to help. "If you ever torture someone who hurt me without telling me again," he breathed, "no matter who they are or what they did, then that's the end forever."

Draco jerked his head back, eyes dimming and nostrils flared with indignation. "But if someone kidnaps you and hurts you, Harry—"

"I don't care."

"The Ministry owes you for holidays you should have had and their treatment of you—"

"_No._"

"You know that I have enemies who might try to hurt you, too, if only as a means of getting at me—"

Harry held up his free hand. "That's different. Those are _your_ enemies. I'm talking about people like the Dursleys, who never tried to hurt you directly, but only struck at me."

Draco's fingers closed on his hard enough to make Harry's arm tremble. He didn't drop his eyes or wince with pain, though, only stared into Draco's eyes without blinking, to make him understand how very serious this was.

"I don't understand you," Draco said at last. "How can you _not_ want revenge for what they did to you, Harry?"

"First of all," Harry said, shifting his hand until Draco was forced to loosen his tight hold at least a little, "not all revenge has to come in the form of torture. Your imagination is too limited." He'd hoped that would win a smile, but Draco just went on studying him as if he were one of the mysteries of the universe. "And second," Harry continued, "I think all my passion for revenge burned out of me when I killed Voldemort. It struck me as useless. It'll never heal my pain, and it won't bring back my dead." He had to swallow a lump before he could continue, thinking about what he would have given for Ron and Hermione and the others to return. "All it does is make _you_ feel better, Draco. It's essentially a selfish passion. And while there's very little that I won't do to make you happy, I draw the line at that."

He had known that Draco might not accept this condition. But the determination he'd come to when he sat down and _thought_ sustained him. If Draco could not accept this—which Harry thought was an entirely reasonable thing to ask, since these were _his_ enemies, and it should be _his_ decision what to do to them, if anything—then Harry would walk away.

Draco had changed his life, had made him fall in love, and had given him hope again. But Harry _would not_ stay with him out of gratitude alone. That was too severe a payment for any debt. And he'd already spent enough of his life doing what he saw as his duty for the sake of others.

"You still don't like what I did to the Dursleys," Draco said, as if that astounded him.

" I accept that it happened," Harry said, staring at him. "I accept that you think it was right. I accept that I want to move past it now, and look at you as more than just the Dursleys' tormentor. But no power on earth will ever convince me you were _justified_."

This was the decision he had come to, the way he could reconcile with Draco and yet stay true to his principles. If he wanted to put the Dursleys' abuse in the past and live with the scars, he should also want to put Draco's abuse of them in the past, especially since they no longer remembered the torture, thanks to his _Obliviate_. He could offer his forgiveness and his willingness to live with Draco. But he did not have to agree that Draco was _right._

For long moments, Draco went on gazing at him. Harry gazed back. If Draco really chose revenge over him, then Draco wasn't the person Harry thought he was, and he would have much less regret in abandoning him.

Then Draco said, very softly, "I promise never to torture your enemies again without speaking to you about it first," and leaned forward to kiss him.

Harry gasped, in relief and thankfulness and wonder, and that caused Draco to slip his tongue into his mouth. Harry groaned into the kiss, but resisted the impulse to drag Draco down on his chair and have his way with him right now. He still had more to say.

* * *

Draco found Harry's condition for acceptance of his behavior very strange—what kind of person _wouldn't_ wish to visit retribution on their enemies if they got the chance?—but he could obey it. He'd talked around it for so long merely to make sure Harry wouldn't change his mind. After all, if he could have both of the things he wanted, Harry and revenge, he might as well have them both.

And now that was past, and they could get to what was important.

Draco kissed Harry thoroughly enough that his head should be swimming, and then leaned on him until he forced his head into the chair back. One hand still pinioned Harry's right hand; the other was free to roam. Draco didn't see any point in playing coy. They were both grown men who knew exactly what they desired. Draco slipped a hand between Harry's legs and squeezed.

Harry gasped, his eyes rolling back. Draco smirked against his throat, where he'd moved his mouth. _He won't be rational in a moment, and then I can move us to my bedroom. _He'd adjusted the wards inside the Manor so that accepted guests could Apparate directly to his bedroom or Harry's. It was going to be useful, if the way Harry was squirming against him was any indication.

And then Harry said, "Stop."

"You _must_ be joking," Draco said, pulling his mouth free to mutter that only because he thought his superior tone would be of use in convincing Harry not to abandon their activities.

"I am." Harry gripped his chin with one strong hand, holding him still, and looked at him. "I'm not done talking yet."

"You don't want this as much as I do, then," Draco hissed at him. He was sure that wasn't true, but if he could use guilt to make Harry do what he _should_ be doing, what was a lie to him?

"Of course I do," Harry said. "And when we finally go to bed, I don't want anything to interrupt us, including any nagging little worries that I still have." Gently, he forced Draco's head back.

_That's at least a reasonable objection,_ Draco thought, but only sat back until he was straddling Harry's legs instead of crawling into his lap. "And what else did you have to say?" he inquired, shifting his balance as if his erection made it uncomfortable for him to sit still. The way the slight motion rubbed him against Harry was entirely incidental, of course.

Harry grasped his hips and held him still.

Draco raised an eyebrow. _Well. He's learned._

"I wanted to say that I'm not going to demand anything unreasonable out of you," Harry began, and then stopped and laughed, probably at the expression Draco could feel taking over his own face. He put a hand behind Draco's neck and tugged him forward until their foreheads rested against each other's. The rim of his glasses cut into Draco's brow, but he wasn't about to complain. "I'm going to _try_, at least," Harry amended his sentence. "I want us to be as equal as possible. I want us to be as free as possible, too. I don't want to cost you more than I bring to you—"

"How in the world could you do that?" Draco hissed, and nipped his neck. Harry's eyes went glassy for a moment, but he recovered far too fast.

"Snape came and visited me a few days ago," Harry said. "He told me that I had no idea what kind of sacrifices you'd gone through to become the man you are, and that I would cost you more than I could imagine." He paused, eyes searching Draco's. "Can you tell me what he meant?"

Draco snorted, his heart beating fast in relief. "My sacrifices were a normal part of growing up," he said. "I changed my mind about several different things in the wake of my trial by the Wizengamot—about Muggleborns and half-bloods, mostly. I also lost my father, and I could only visit him in Azkaban a few times. And I had to learn enough about money to manage the Malfoy vaults and keep my mother from controlling them." He scowled a bit. He knew that he had used Severus as a confidante during that time, but Severus had no business to make it sound as if he'd gone through the labors of Hercules just to force Harry away from him. "I changed, yes, and sometimes I think I changed too much for Severus's taste, because I became more involved with the world while he remained a recluse." He nipped Harry's neck again, and thoughtfully decided that there was nothing in the world that tasted so good. "But it wasn't anything your leaving me would help. If anything, you're going to add to the store of good things in my life." He pressed downwards again, instinctively seeking pressure and fiction for his cock.

Harry's hips bucked involuntarily, and his voice was breathless when he said, "You're sure? I _know_ my life will be richer with you around, but if your life—"

"I love you," Draco said, impatient with this line of thought. "I want you. I don't care to forsake you, unless you walk away from me."

Harry kissed him, a gentle, close-mouthed kiss of the kind he'd given him when Draco opened the Manor's front door. "That's part of what I worry about," he murmured. "I know this might not last forever. It _could_, but not if we don't work at it, if we just somehow assume that it'll continue. I don't want you to think it must be perfect, when it won't be, and I don't want you to assume I'm worth any sacrifice. I'm not." He surveyed Draco in silence.

"You're far too delicate," Draco said, even though the joy had returned, and, along with it, a deep pleasure that Harry had thought this much about _him_ in particular. "You don't want me to have a moment's unhappiness, do you?"

"Of course not," Harry said, and then his smile flashed. "Unless you deserve it for being a teasing Slytherin _brat._"

"I'm sure that I'll be far happier with you than without you," said Draco. "And—" He stopped when he would have said that he wouldn't let Harry go. He'd said that before, and Harry hadn't believed him. Besides, that might be a promise of the kind of forever Harry didn't want, the one where they just assumed that if problems arose, the problems wouldn't end their relationship because they'd cling to one another. It would take more than clinging to one another to preserve their bond. Draco had seen that with this latest fight. It was letting him alone to make his own decisions that had ultimately brought Harry back to him.

"I don't know if we'll be together sixty years from now," he finished, to Harry's inquiring gaze. "But I'm willing to try."

And _this_ time, Harry finally took the message Draco had been writing for him in large letters and crushed Draco's lips with his, clicking their teeth together and filling Draco's mouth with the taste of copper. Draco eagerly kissed back, and tried to press Harry's head into the chair again, only to find those large hands arresting his movements.

"Not this time," Harry growled into his ear. "I've let you tease me. Now it's my turn to do what _I_ like."

Draco laughed into the kiss, and decided that his mouth was too occupied to tell Harry that he didn't mind that; he was only too happy they were _finally_ getting on with it.

Talking was all very well, but Draco had always felt that a properly strong lovers' relationship deserved a sexual component as well, and sitting about on chairs soulfully gazing at one another didn't count.

And if sex would silence the childish voice in his head shrieking, _He came back, he came back, he's mine!_, then Draco was all for it.


	61. Reunion

_Chapter 61—Reunion_

Harry spent a moment testing the wards and kissing Draco at the same time, trying to make sure that he could Apparate directly to his room the way he wanted to. It was hard to be sure, since Draco was trying to control the kiss every second. Harry finally located the hole he had wanted and jumped them both through space with a triumphant growl.

They landed next to his bed with Draco looking rather green. "Harry—" he tried to protest.

Harry gave him other things to think about by dropping him roughly on the bed and then covering Draco's body with his own. He wouldn't kiss him until the green tinge to his face went away, but that happened quickly, and then Harry could return to showing how determined he was to make this _work._

It would take _effort_, that was the heart and the whole of it. He couldn't lie back and let Draco take care of everything, the way he'd been content to do when Draco first took him into Malfoy Manor. He had to want this just as much as Draco did. If he didn't, he might as well walk away right now.

_Assuming that Draco will unwind his arms and his legs and let me walk away any time soon, of course._

He had taken certain aspects of this for granted—assuming that Draco would never lie to him, for one thing. That was stupid. Draco was Slytherin. Of course he was going to lie. Harry had to be alert for the small deceptions, and convince him not to lie about the important things.

He tore his mouth away from Draco's and pinned his hands to the bed with one of his own, while kissing and nipping down his neck. Draco made small, whimpering moans Harry hadn't known he was capable of. He pulled back long enough to grin and say, "You sound like a girl."

Draco snarled at him, and, from the shape of his mouth, seemed set to say something extremely menacing. But Harry wouldn't let him. He used his tongue now, licking the places he'd bitten before, and then his breath, blowing across the wet skin. Draco threw his head back, and his hands relaxed from their straining against Harry's.

Harry innocently blew onto Draco's ear, and then into his hair, making his fringe rise and drift back from his forehead. It was worth the pain of his own need to see Draco's eyes pop open and stare at him.

"I love your hair," Harry told him.

Draco frowned, but Harry Vanished their clothes, and he settled again with a faint smile, evidently thinking they would get on with the main event now.

Harry deliberately moved slowly. He had meant it when he said that he wanted to _tease_ Draco. And his definition of that activity didn't exactly match Draco's.

He lingered on a nipple until Draco squirmed and lifted his erection to touch Harry's hip, and then he moved on to the other. Draco said, in a tone of slight despair, "For God's _sake_, Harry."

"Yes?" Harry glanced up at him, and found his glasses already fogged. He focused his magic to float the glasses over to a side table. "Was there something you wanted?"

"You know very well—"

"To be paid attention to, and petted, like the beautiful creature you are." Harry grinned at him and stroked the skin above his ribs. "Yes, I know, darling. Don't worry. I'll make sure to pay attention to every inch of you."

Draco pushed at him, sounding very much as if he regretted letting Harry take the lead now, but Harry easily kept him pinned; superior strength and reflexes were everything in a close struggle like this, especially in this position. Then Harry blew his way around Draco's ears until his head lolled back again, and then admired each of the fine hairs scattered along his stomach.

"You _could_ pass as a girl if you wanted, you know. No one would ever see hair like this against your skin. And I imagine that tucking your cock out of sight would be fairly easy." Harry looked up at him from where his head was hovering above Draco's groin. "Though a shame, of course."

"Harry," Draco panted, his hair stuck to his forehead and his face more open than Harry had seen it since their argument, "I _will_ kick you."

"I'm lying on your legs, so I fail to see how."

Draco's right leg twitched. Harry easily held that down, too. Then he blew on Draco's navel, and laughed as that twitched in turn.

"If you won't do anything for me, then get off me, and I'll go wank myself—"

And that was the point when Harry took Draco into his mouth. He ignored the arch of hips that followed, the push of flesh down his throat that nearly choked him. He concentrated on keeping his teeth out of the way and hollowing his cheeks. Draco's cries and gasps and moans were all worth it.

Harry rolled Draco's erection gently from side to side, letting it touch one of his gums and then the other. He laved it, sucked hard enough to spread the taste throughout his mouth, and then relaxed as much as he could. He hadn't done this enough to consider himself any kind of an expert—though he knew what Draco liked.

Draco was making a sound that kept starting out as a groan and ending in a gasp. Harry wished he could tease him about sounding like a girl again and have it be intelligible.

_Well, I can still talk._

He said the words, and Draco quivered at the vibrations. Then Harry did his very best impression of inhaling everything that filled his mouth.

If Draco's response was any indication, he came so quickly and so hard that he surprised even himself. Harry had to struggle to keep from panicking and choking, but Auror training could overrule even the gag reflex. So he kept telling himself, at least, and it seemed to work. Harry pulled back at last, licking his lips, and without a single drop spilled on the sheets.

Draco lay sated, his breath in those tiny exhalations that he used on the edge of sleep. Harry grinned at him and, careful of his own throbbing need, moved up the bed again, waking Draco with a sharp nip to his earlobe.

"What—Harry?" Draco turned towards him, eyes hazy. "You can't possibly expect me to—"

Harry laid himself full-length on Draco again and began kissing, blowing, and nipping as he had before. Every time he tried to speak, his throat ached, but finally he decided that Draco was so deep in the throes of an awakening second arousal that he couldn't mock the way his voice sounded.

"You assume we're done after one time? I'm so very disappointed in you. When you were teasing me, _I_ had more stamina."

Draco snickered. "You sound ridiculous."

Not far enough distracted, then. Harry used his teeth on Draco's chest to punish him, and the next laugh became a moan. Harry was beyond satisfied to feel a second erection stirring to life against his thigh.

"It'll—take some time," Draco panted, head twisting restlessly, as if he'd either like to move away from Harry's mouth or take up permanent residence inside it.

"I know," Harry said, and nibbled some more, and licked several of Draco's fingers, and swatted away the persistent hand trying to reach for him. At some point Draco might give up and lie still, but it seemed they hadn't reached that point yet.

* * *

Draco had had lovers who would take him through an orgasm before and then towards a second one, but not for a long time, and he certainly wouldn't have thought Harry would be one of them, not when they hadn't had sex for more than a week. Draco was both impressed at his thoughtfulness and more than a little irritated.

_Do I do that little for him, if he can hold off this long?_

He moved, rubbing a leg against Harry's cock, since his hands weren't in a good position and kept being snatched away any time they got close to his goal. He had the satisfaction of seeing Harry pause in his ministrations, just for the smallest second, and his eyes turn a shade of green like sunset seen through clouds.

_Good. I do affect him. So he really does just want to do this for me, and he likes the teasing._

Draco lay back and tried to react as little as possible, though he couldn't help jumping when Harry used his teeth in unexpected places. And then Harry slid down his belly as if he would give him a second blow job.

"You're going to fuck me properly, or I'm leaving this bed," Draco told him.

Harry evidently felt that didn't deserve a response, as he gave a single long, slow lick. Draco clenched his hands in the sheets to keep from reaching for Harry's hair and pushing his head down.

And Harry saw that and was grinning like a madman, the bastard.

At least he had the sense to reach for the oil they'd used before and kept in both bedrooms the next moment, or Draco would have done everything he could to follow through on his threat. There was teasing, and then there was asking him to be superhuman. And he wanted to see Harry come, too. He was being selfish, denying Draco the pleasure of watching his orgasm.

Then, of course, Harry had to take his time about the preparations. He put the oil on his fingers and rubbed them together to hear the slurping sound they made. Then he circled Draco's entrance enough times to tire his hand out, while Draco cursed at him ineffectively; he didn't look his most impressive with his legs spread wide and his neck craned sideways across the pillow to see Harry, he had to admit. And then, finally, Harry started.

After that, it took forever for him to be assured that Draco was ready. Whenever Draco told him to hurry up, Harry innocently explained that he was just concerned for his lover's comfort, and used a little more oil.

Draco finally resorted to locking his legs around Harry's waist and pulling him forward. In a perfect world, that would have resulted in Harry entering him right then and there, and instinct taking over. Harry just grunted and looked surprised, though, and blinked when he raised his head and met Draco's eyes.

"_Now_," Draco said. He was sure he looked half-demented, his glare burning with frustration and impatience and arousal mounted to near the point of pain. He didn't care. He would admit that Harry knew how to tease, and he supposed he almost deserved it, but enough was _enough._

Harry studied him, then nodded, set the jar of oil out of immediate kicking range, and lifted Draco's legs to his shoulders. And then he eased forward, just on the edge of being too careful, just on the edge of being too painful. Draco grunted, but his mind had moved ahead, contemplating what would happen when Harry finally finished this part. He didn't mind the slow, sore burn that flared to life along his muscles. The teasing had hurt more.

"Harry," Draco said.

Harry nodded to him, hair finally tamed by sweat, eyes half-wild, face flushed, body strained with holding back.

"Fuck me like you _mean_ it."

Harry threw himself forward so hard that Draco felt his head nearly collide with the back of the bed. Harry muttered a quick spell that might be meant to hold him in place; Draco couldn't have told an incantation from the stream of murmured nonsense Harry followed it with.

And finally, _finally_, they were back where they both belonged, in a kind of togetherness that no other part of their relationship could fulfill for Draco, pure and fast and hard thrusting meeting strength that could accept that thrusting and return it as sheer power. Draco pushed back into the motions that Harry seemed to intend almost to punish him, and traced the progress of both the spiraling pleasure in his belly and the mounting flush in Harry's face.

Draco could see the moment when Harry forgot about teasing and any vestige of gentleness, and lost himself to the tide of sensation. He roared in joy, and Harry met his eyes as best as he could from the bowed position he held his head in.

"Come _on_—" Draco said.

And then one of Harry's hands shot out, leaving his hip, and stroked him. Just once.

That was all it took.

_Bastard!_ Draco swore in his head, and he might even have said it aloud, but he couldn't hear anything; all noise dimmed as he came. His body twitched and jerked in more directions than he could remember it ever taking at once before, and he was bucking with exertion and effort and the desire to _have_ it, to _end _it.

He pried his eyes open when he finished, and threw his hips towards Harry with all the force he could muster.

Harry's face flared with surprise, but he couldn't help himself; his hands dropped from Draco's hips to the bedspread, his head drooped forward, and he came with pleasure so intense on his features that Draco felt repaid for the teasing. And then Harry collapsed on him, and actually started snoring.

Draco laughed aloud, then called Trippy. He didn't mind her seeing them like this; it wasn't as though she was ignorant of what they were doing, and she had helped to raise him, so she had seen him naked in far more embarrassing situations than the greatest sex of his life. When she appeared, he asked her for soft towels and clean, hot water, which she brought right away. Draco rolled Harry over and cleaned both of them up.

Harry never stirred.

Draco curled around him, glad that his intuition had been correct. Harry was his.

If Harry had been awake, he would probably have said that Draco was his, too, but he was asleep, so Draco could be smug all by himself.


	62. Tomorrow

This chapter is the last of _Learning Life Over_. It could have a sequel, I suppose, but the open-ended nature of it is deliberate; I wanted to show the various directions the ending could go, rather than confine it to one path. Thus, there won't be a sequel to this, though eventually there may be more stories.

Many thanks to all the reviewers and the readers; part of the fun of writing this was that other people also thought it was fun.

_Chapter 62—Tomorrow_

"You'll consider it, then?"

Harry nodded, and stretched out his hand to accept the sheet of parchment Bancroft held. It listed the exhibitions of stunt flying he and his partner would put on in the next few months, only two of them in Britain. From what Harry had seen of the office, he knew that Bancroft's tastes ran to dark wood and expensive furniture and elaborate magical alarm systems—and, thus, that he did well enough for himself to be able to afford hefty payments for his flyers.

Bancroft had told him, frankly, that he'd receive more than others, as long as he flew more dangerous maneuvers and sold more brooms. If Harry's popularity dropped, they would adjust his Galleons accordingly.

That was _if_ Harry accepted this job permanently. No one said he had to. Draco had awakened him this morning complaining about the danger of some of the moves Harry had flown at Hogwarts, specifically leaping off his broom. And Harry wasn't sure that he wanted to travel all over Europe, and be away from Draco for weeks at a time.

_Of course, we've only lived together for three weeks or so. That might be all I can stand of him. _Harry grinned, thinking of the way he'd managed to get Draco over his complaints about the danger of falling off his broom: a rousing row, followed by equally rousing forgiveness and then sex involving the ropes on Draco's bed. _Though I doubt it._

The wonderful thing was that he didn't have to make a permanent decision. He'd told Bancroft he would contact him tomorrow with his choice, but he'd warned him that, even if he accepted, it might not be forever. Bancroft had seemed perfectly happy with that.

"Something amusing?" Bancroft asked him.

"It's private." Harry stood up, inwardly marveling at how easy it was to tell people something was none of their business now. _Yet another trade Draco taught me how to practice._

"Of course." The man looked less than interested, anyway, already turning to answer a Floo call flaring to life in the fireplace behind him. "I'll speak to you tomorrow, then, Potter."

Harry nodded to his back and walked out, tossing the folded parchment lightly up and down in his hand. He wasn't sure either he or Draco could stand the constant dangers of stunt flying.

On the other hand, if it led to more arguments…

He really did need to stop grinning like an idiot, Harry told himself sternly. It earned him several nervous stares as he left the building.

* * *

Harry pulled his Nimbus up, staring curiously. Angelina was heading towards him—they'd agreed to meet above the Quidditch Pitch near his old flat that afternoon—but he'd thought she'd come alone. Instead, a heavyset older witch accompanied her. When she came closer, Harry could see that this witch, much like Madam Hooch, must have years of flying experience, but she still didn't look familiar. Her unblinking, gray-eyed stare made him incline his head in a slight, instinctive bow, instead of reaching out to shake her hand.

"Harry," Angelina said briskly, "this is Vesta Freshwater. She just took over coaching the Montrose Magpies, and she's sacked their Seeker. He wasn't winning games. Freshwater only demands the best."

"That makes sense," the woman said, in a voice like an owl's screech, "as I wish to win games." She leaned forward to study Harry. Harry stared back at her, wondering if she wanted to hire him as a trainer for a new Seeker. He'd have to warn her he hadn't played the position in twelve years—

And then Vesta sniffed and said, "Yes, I think so. His forearms are unused to the strain right now, of course, but his natural flying posture is excellent, and I saw what he did at the exhibition." She looked at Angelina. "You were not lying to me."

Angelina rolled her eyes, but she was grinning. "Freshwater, when have I _ever_ lied to you?"

"What are you talking about?" Harry demanded, a bit miffed that they spoke as if he couldn't hear them.

Vesta sniffed again. "Johnson told me that you might make a good Seeker for the Magpies, Potter. I declined to believe her until I had seen you for myself. Good flyers are not always good Quidditch players." Bitterness lurked in the back of her voice, as if this were an opinion she was in the habit of defending. "But yes, you would. I want you to play on the team."

Harry blinked several times, then said, "But I'm too old for professional Quidditch, Madam."

"Hardly," said Vesta. "Yes, ten years ago twenty-eight would have been too old, but the new salves for the hands and shoulders are wonderful, and there are some legal spells that we may use to ease the strain on older players. When can you come to a practice?"

"I haven't said that I _would_ become your Seeker, yet," Harry said, his mind working to comprehend all that had happened. He'd been expecting no more than a friendly flight with Angelina when he came out this afternoon. "I don't know that I want to. I haven't played more than casual Quidditch games in a decade, and it's flying I love, not the sport in and of itself."

"Oh, bollocks, Harry." Angelina waved her hand. "The way that you dove after that fake Snitch we enchanted for the exhibition? It's in your blood. You'd easily learn it again, I know."

Vesta bobbed her head hard enough to hurt, Harry thought, if her neck wasn't so thick. "You are right for us. I must insist that you come to at least one practice so that I can see how you work with our Chasers and Beaters before I hire you, of course."

Harry's first thought was that Draco was unlikely to want him flying among Bludgers, though it might be a bit less frightening than watching him fall off his broom.

His second thought was that he _might_ want to play Quidditch again, and he wouldn't know until he actually tried it, or thought about it more than his scrambling brain could do right now.

"Can I give you a decision tomorrow?" he asked.

"I would expect a decision no _later_ than that," said Vesta, and then turned her broom and soared abruptly away. Harry shook his head at Angelina, who looked as pleased with herself as a cat that had eaten all the cream.

"Why?" he asked.

"You'd be _perfect_ for Quidditch, Harry, and you know it."

Harry stared at her for a moment more, until she snickered and admitted, "All right, I think the professional Quidditch scene is boring right now. The established teams are _too_ established. The players are lazy, and they don't make an effort because they understand their opponents too well. Freshwater reorganizing the Magpies is going to change that, but with you as Seeker, things will become far more exciting for a longer period of time."

"You don't think I'd take over the scene and make everyone lazy again, competing for second place instead of flying against me?" Harry asked wryly.

"Oh, Freshwater will make sure that she works up the stories of you not playing for twelve years and being good at stunt flying but not the real game," said Angelina. "It'll be a long time before they stop listening to her. And, in the meantime, I am entertained."

Harry snorted. "I suppose I'll think about it."

"Do," Angelina advised him, and began to spiral upwards. Harry shook his head again and followed her.

* * *

Sometimes, Draco thought, he and Severus understood each other so well that they could walk along the paths of his garden and have whole conversations without saying a word.

And, sometimes, they didn't. This was one of the latter.

Severus had stopped to face him, his expression twisted into what most people would call a horrific snarl. Draco had seen the horrific snarls, though, and they were far worse than this. Severus was only mildly upset with him, instead of truly angry. He reserved his anger for Harry, as far as Draco could tell, and clients who defaulted on their payments—and Draco himself only when he still wanted to be a Death Eater.

"He is _wrong_ for you," Severus insisted. "Potters are selfish, Draco." The shadow of memory lay long on his face, and once, that would have impressed Draco enough to keep him silent. But, just as the times when Severus became truly angry at him had passed, so had those. "He will corrupt and ruin you, make you trust him and then—"

"He will not," Draco said quietly. "Yes, he will hurt me. I know that. I know it will never be a peaceful relationship. It will never be what my parents had. But that's too cold and quiet for my tastes, anyway. Don't you see, Severus? I _want_ what Harry can give me."

"How can you know that?" Severus snapped, quick as lightning. "You've had so many lovers before, Draco, most of whom you controlled. When did your tastes begin to run to storms?"

"When I woke Harry again, and saw how passionate he was." Draco touched a hand to his hair, but didn't run his fingers through it. He didn't want to do that in front of Severus, who considered it an unclean habit. "If he had been quiet, though, my tastes would run to the quiet. I'm in love with _him_, not some ideal vision. And that's what I have, and what I'll fight to keep." He paused. "And if you plan to set traps to drive him away from me, then I'll fight you."

"He is not worthy of you."

"It has little to do with worth, and more to do with what I want."

"I do not wish to see you hurt," Severus said. "I protected you throughout the War, Draco, and since as well. You are—you know what you are to me." There was no way that Severus could admit aloud they had something like a father-son relationship, Draco knew; it was hard enough for him to call Draco his protégé. "I will not have your heart broken by a Potter."

"And if he hurts me irreparably, I promise that you can inflict all the bloody vengeance you like on him." Draco reached out and clasped his teacher's left arm, holding it so that his fingers pressed into Severus's Dark Mark, a silent reminder of what else they'd shared. "But I don't think he will."

Severus sneered.

"No, I can't be certain," Draco said. "But, as he pointed out to me just recently, certainty is overrated. And if I did think this would last forever, I might be careless with it, and ensure it didn't. As long as I know how easily I could shatter this bond, I'll fight harder for it."

Severus scrutinized his face for a long time in silence. Draco bore the searching gaze patiently. He couldn't blame Severus for being skeptical, and not only because of his long grudge against Harry. There was also _Draco's _grudge against Harry, while they were still schoolboys, and the many complaints he'd uttered about Harry defeating the Dark Lord just at the worst point for him, meaning he spent time in Azkaban. Severus had always been suspicious of change, and sure it would be for the worst long after it had shown it probably wouldn't be.

Draco could only offer the answers in his own eyes and soul, and hope they were enough. He wouldn't sacrifice his relationship with Harry for peace with Severus, but he would like it if they could be in the same room without shouting at each other.

At last, Severus nodded, a motion so tiny that anyone but Draco would have missed it, and then turned away. "Did I show you the cluster of new flowers I am growing?" he asked. "It turns out that Longbottom does not have quite the incompetent hand with blossoms that he has with cauldrons."

Draco smiled, and listened. His thoughts stayed sometimes on Severus's speech, and sometimes on the owls he'd sent and received that morning. Good news from Blaise, who had arrived in safety with Sarah in the Azores, and renewed his marriage vows with her just that morning. Draco had sent a letter of congratulations to them, along with a piece of his mother's jewelry for Sarah. The knowledge that one of her rings sat on a Mudblood witch's finger would burn Narcissa. Draco hadn't yet chosen the best time to employ that revelation.

And then he'd sent a far different letter to Gloriana Zabini, accompanied with certain select wizarding photographs.

It turned out that one of her suspected murders was more than suspected, after all—but the person with certain knowledge was not inclined to go to the Ministry. She had, however, sold the evidence to Draco for a pretty sum. Draco had thoughtfully made copies of some of it for Gloriana, and explained that, as long as she stayed away from him and Harry, he would stay away from the Ministry.

Gloriana had eyes. She would understand, and see the resulting happiness of everyone staying in their respective places.

Of course she would try to fight back. But she wouldn't find a counter to that weapon soon, and by the time she did, Draco would have a new one in his possession.

_I do enjoy politics._

* * *

Harry rose slowly. He'd been asleep next to Draco, deeply enough that he hadn't heard the owl pecking for admittance at the window at first. But the wards had let the owl through, meaning it carried nothing dangerous. He opened the window, and took the message from the owl's leg, finding he had to Summon his glasses before he could read it. Trippy came in to take the bird away and feed it, no more fazed by the sight of Harry's nakedness than she ever was. Draco didn't stir.

_Dear Harry_, the letter began, making him think it was from Neville or Dean, or perhaps Angelina. But as he read on, he realized the official Hogwarts crest was at the top. It had come from McGonagall.

She wanted him to come back next year and teach Defense Against the Dark Arts; as their current professor was leaving at the end of the term.

Harry closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall. For a moment, he thought he would laugh, but then he blinked back tears, and realized he was simply overwhelmed.

He'd gone from nothing to an embarrassment of riches in such a short time. And there were advantages everywhere he turned, possibilities blossoming and paths opening. He didn't know where they would end, because it seemed they wouldn't end. He closed his eyes and swallowed.

He didn't know which one he should choose, yet.

When he opened his eyes, he saw that Draco had shifted, and now extended one hand, beckoning. "Come back to bed, Harry, and tell me about whatever it is in the morning," he said. His voice, though slurred with sleep, still managed to sound imperious.

Harry laid the Headmistress's letter carefully aside, and then padded across the room to the bed and slid under the covers. Draco's arm curved around his shoulders, and he drew Harry in for a kiss.

Harry went willingly, and then Draco dropped them both to the bed, his head resting firmly on Harry's shoulder, his hand still curled possessively around the shoulder where it had settled. Harry knew from his soft snores that he'd already fallen asleep again.

Harry kissed his hair. Then he lay back and grinned at the ceiling for a moment before he closed his eyes, the better to concentrate on the warmth of the man he was in love with.

He chose tomorrow.


End file.
